THE  UNIVERSITY 
O£r  ILLINOIS 

>  LIBRARY 

/»*-  - 

*     911.  327 
Os  Ss 


S  HijT(iS!CAl 


—  thi<*  ^  •       EMI  9i  before  the 
1   below.    A 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  Of  IUIKNS 


y 


STARVED  ROCK 


H  fnstorical  Sfeetcb 


BY 

EATON    G.  OSMAN 


OTTAWA,  ILL. 

THE  FREK  TRADER  PRINTING  HOUSE 
1895 


pfsc. 
3*7 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

EATON    G.    OS  MAN, 

1895- 


ENGRAVING  BY 
ILLINOIS  ENGRAVING  Co.,  CHICAGO. 


PHOTOGRAPHS  BY 
GERDING,  BOWMAN  AND  GUSTAVE  KNEUSSL  (AMATEUR), 

OTTAWA,  ILL., 
AND  IRA  B.  MYERS  (AMATEUR),  CHICAGO. 


DEER    PARK.   LOOKING    DOWN    THE    GLEN. 


[HE  UBHARY 

OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILUMOIS 


PRETACE. 


rRANCIS  PARKMAN'S  "La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  the  Great 
West  "  must  be  hereafter  the  basis  of  any  repetition  of  the  story 
of  the  discovery  and  settlement  of  the  Illinois  river  valley.  That  I 
have,  in  this  little  sketch,  availed  myself  of  the  results  of  Dr.  Park- 
man's  labors  will  be  apparent  to  ev.ery  reader  of  his'tieligirtfal  volumes. 
1  the  more  readily  acknowledge  this  indebtedness  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  even  before  he  had  himself  stood  upon  Starved  Rock,  his  studies 
of  the  original  authorities  had  led  to  his  rejection  of  the  supposition  of 
Sparks  and  others,  that  it  was  Buffalo  Rock  which  was  the  site  of 
La  Salle's  famous  "  Rock  Fort."  Dr.  Parkman  established  beyond 
question,  from  documents  contemporary  with  La  Salle,  corroborating 
this  conclusion  of  the  student  of  manuscripts  by  subsequent  personal 
observations  on  the  ground,  that  Starved  Rock  was  the  true  site  of  the 
ancient  Fort  St.  Louis,  around  which  was  planted  the  first  permanent 
settlement  of  the  white  race  in  the  Mississippi  valley,  thus  giving  to 
Starved  Rock  a  prestige  historically  equal  to  the  fame  it  has  ever  had 
as  a  unique  landmark  of  the  Great  West. 

I  have  not  attempted  here  to  rewrite  the  history  of  the  Illinois 
country,  but  simply  to  bring  together  in  one  place  such  authenticated 
facts  relating  to  Starved  Rock,  scattered  through  many  volumes,  as 
may  assist  in  giving  the  Rock  its  proper  perspective  on  the  canvas  of 
western  and  our  national  history,  as  well  as  interest  the  thousands  of 
strangers  who  annually  visit  this  beautiful  and  interesting  spot. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PREFACE,      ...........  3 

INTRODUCTORY,     ..........  5 

THE  DISCOVERERS  :    Marquette  and  Joliet,          ....  9 

THE  DISCOVERY:   The  Voyage  of  Marquette  and  Joliet,            .  12 

THE  FATE  OF  THE  EXPLORERS  :   The  Death  of  Marquetfe,       .  16 

LA  SALLE  :    His  Dream  of  Empire,             .....  19 

LA  SALLE'S  CAREER  :    His  Earlier  Work,            ....  22 

TONTY  :   The  Iroquois  Raid,        .         .         .         .  .         .25 

STARVED  ROCK  FORTIFIED  :    La  Salle  Takes  Possession,           .  28 

KISMET  :    Failure  and  Death,      .......  32 

LA  SALLE'S  SUCCESSORS  :   Two  Hundred  Years  Ago,         .         .  36 

THE  MISSIONS:   The  Immaculate  Conception,            ...  40 
THE  DRAMA  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  :   The  Scenery  of 

Tragedy,                                                                                            .  44 
STARVED    ROCK    IN    THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  :    The   Indian 

Sieges,  47 

THE  LAST  OF  THE  ILLINI  :   The  Final  Tragedy,  53 

THE  SEQUEL  :   The  Pottawatomies,              .         .         .     _   .         .  61 

MODERN  STARVED  ROCK  :   The  Era  of  the  White  Man,     .         .  65 

THE  HISTORIANS  :   Francis  Parkman  and  John  G.  Shea,            .  69 

THE  NOVELIST  :   Mrs.  Catherwood,              .....  75 

THE  RELICS  :    Silent  Witnesses,          ......  77 


VIEWS   FROM   TOP   OF   STARVED   ROCK. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

Here  by  this  stream,  in  days  of  old 
The  red  men  lived,  who  lie  in  mould; 
The  leaves  that  once  their  history  knew 
Their  crumbling  pages  hide  from  view. 

"I  HAVE  stood  upon  Starved  Rock,  and  gazed  for  hours 
upon  the  beautiful  landscape  spread  out  before  me,"  said 
the  late  Justice  Sydney  Breese.*  "The  undulating  plains> 
rich  in  their  verdure;  the  rounded  hills  beyond,  clad  in  their 
forest  livery;  and  the  gentle  river,  pursuing  its  noiseless  way  to  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Gulf,  all  in  harmonious  association,  makeup  a  picture 
over  which  the  eye  delfghts  to  linger  ;  and  when  to  these  are  added  the 
recollections  of  the  heroic  adventurers  who  first  occupied  it,  that  here  the 
banner  of  France  so  many  years  floated  freely  in  the  winds;  that  here  was 
civilization  while  all  around  was  barbaric  darkness,  —  the  most  intense  and 
varied  emotions  cannot  fail  to  be  awakened." 

Starved  Rock  is  one  of  the  most  noted  natural  curiosities  of  the  West. 
Once  an  arm  of  the  bluff,  which  here  bounds  the  Illinois  river  vallay  on  the 
south,  it  now  stands  alone,  an  isolated  sandstone  cliff,  whose  walls,  carved 
into  form  by  the  floods  of  countless  generations,  rise  one  hundred  and  twen- 
ty-five feet  above  the  level  of  the  river.  Circular  in  form,  the  summit  of 
the  Rock  contains  about  half  an  acre  of  land,  which  is  well  covered  with  a 
growth  of  evergreens  and  scrub-oaks,  while  its  sides  are  draped  with  vines  and 
ferns,  wild  flowers  and  cedars,  and  below 

,,; ;,.  "The  river  calmly  flows." 

*BKEESE  :  "History  of  Illinois." 


STARVED  ROCK  '.  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


The  sqmmit  is  accessible  only  from  the  south,  where  the  flood-eddies  have 
heaped  up  the  sands  against  the  base.  Nature's  helping  hand  has  been  sup- 
plemented by  man,  both  savage  and  civilized,  who  has  carved  rude  steps  in 
the  rock,  and  converted  a  mere  hint  for  a  climbing  pathway  to  the  top  into  a 
practicable  ascent. 

Starved  Rock  stands  apart,  like  a  moss-grown  and  ivy-clad  battle-tower 
of  mediaeval  ages.  It  is  a  nature-made  citadel,  as  impregnable  to  assault  as 
Gibralter.  Like  many  a  feudal  refuge,  it  has  survived  the  attacks  alike  of 
war  and  time,  and  to-day  stands  a  monument  to  brave  men  and  their  van- 
ished dreams  of  political  power  and  commercial  aggrandizement. 

From  the  summit,  the  valley  of  the  Illinois  for  miles  lies  spread  out  be- 
fore the  eye  as  an  open  book — an  incomparable  view. 

"  On  either  side  the  river  lie 
Long  fields  of  barley  and  of  rye, 
That  clothe  the  world  and  meet  the  sky  ; 
And  through  the  fields  the  road  runs  by 

To  many-towered  Camelot 

To  the  east  the  eye  follows  the  thread  of  the  river,  as  it  flows  past  cultivated 
farms  and  under  the  shadow  of  verdure-clad  hills.  In  the  distance  rises 
Buffalo  Rock,  a  Starved  Rock  enlarged  and  magnified,  behind  which  curls 
the  smoke  of  Ottawa's  busy  shops;  while  afar  in  the  haze  beyond  the  hills 
of  Rutland  give  shadowy  form  and  contour  to  the  vanishing  horizon.  On 
turning  to  the  west,  the  eye  lingers  along  the  meandering  stream  on  whose 
clear  bosom  once 

"  Voyagers  'gainst  time  did  row." 

Stealing  away  through  broad  and  fertile  fields,  or  behind  low  clumps  of 
trees,  the  silvery  trail  is  at  last  lost  in  the  far  distance, 

"  Where  gleaming  fields  of  haze 
Meet  the  voyageur's  gaze.'1 

In  the  midst  of  this  haze  may  be  distinguished  the  outlines  of  the  twin  cities 
of  La  Salle  and  Peru;  while  just  below  the  horizon,  extended  from  bluff  to 


INTRODUCTORY. 


bluff,  the  great  bridge  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  hangs  suspended  over 

the  river, — 

Like  a  triumphal  arch 
Erected  o'er  its  march 
To  the  sea. 

From  the  northern  segment  of  the  Rock,  one  looks  down  upon  the  river  be- 
low his  feet. 

"No  wind  stirs  its  waves, 
But  the  spirits  of  the  braves 

Hov'ring  o'er, 
Whose  antiquated  graves 
Its  still  water  laves 
On  the  shore." 

From  the  farther  shore-line  stretches  the  now  cultivated  meadow,  where 
once  stood  the  ancient  Kaskaskia,  the  home  of  the  savage  tribes  who  two 
hundred  years  ago  claimed  and  occupied  the  Illinois  country  as  their  hunt- 
ing grounds.  Under  the  brow  of  the  distant  bluff  sits  the  Tillage  of  Utica, 
wherein  dwells  but  a  tithe  of  the  population  that  once  lived  upon  this  site. 

It  is  and  ever  has  been  a  rich  and  beautiful  land,  for  whose  possession 
many  a  desperate  battle  has  been  fought,  both  before  and  since  the  white 
man  came;  and  the  ashes  of  both  the  victor  and  the  vanquished  enrich  the 
soil  on  which  are  grown  the  "  corn  and  wine"  of  later  generations  of  men 
who  love  the  spot  as  dearly  as  did  the  fated  red  men.  It  is  as  beautiful  now 
as  then,  but  changed, — 

"  Soft  hints  of  meadows,  sweet  with  hay; 
High  banks  that  rise,  thick  fringed,  between 
The  wood  and  wave,  forever  green; 
A  farm  lawn,  just  beyond  the  way, 
Alive  with  youngsters  at  their  play: 
All  these  in  pictured  landscape  lie, 
Framed  in  pale  hues  of  air  and  sky." 


Deer  Park -The  Sentinel. 


THE  DISCOVERERS. 

A  fiery  soul,  which,  working  out  its  way, 

Fretted  the  puny  body  to  decay, 

And  o'er  informed  the  tenement  of  clay. 


j\A  ARQUETTE  is  one  of  the  most  interesting,  as  he  is  one  of  the  most 
/  I  conspicuous,  figures  of  Northwestern  discovery.  The  scion  of  an 
illustrious  family  of  French  sheriffs  and  soldiers,  whose  later  genera- 
tions furnished  three  sons  to  die  in  the  cause  of  American  liberty  as  soldiers 
in  the  armies  of  our  French  allies  in  the  War  for  Independence,  Jacques, 
born  at  Laon  in  1637,  was  destined  to  be  the  most  celebrated  of  his  race, 
as  well  as  the  last  of  that  long  line  of  priestly  explorers  and  Christian 
martyrs  whose  names  and  deeds  are  the  crown  of  glory  of  the  Canadian 
church. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen,  Marquette  entered  the  Society  of  Jesus  and 
became  a  teacher.  Later  he  chose  a  foreign  missionary's  career,  and  was 
sent  to  Canada  (1666).  At  Three  Rivers  he  devoted  himself  so  assiduously 
to  the  study  of  Indian  languages  that  he  soon  mastered  six  of  the  root 
tongues,  with  most  of  their  dialects.  It  is  probable  that  no  man  of  his  time 
had  a  more  complete  mastery  of  the  Indian  languages  of  the  Northwest 
than  Marquette.  This  learning  soon  came  to  be  of  immense  value  to  him. 

From  Three  Rivers  he  went  (1668)  to  Sault  de  Ste.  Marie,  where  with 
Dablon,  his  Father  Superior,  he  built  a  church.  In  1669  he  went  to  La- 
pointe,  at  the  western  end  of  Lake  Superior,  where  he  met  some  of  the 


t 

STARVED  ROCK  :  A   HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


Illinois  tribes,  who  had  gone  thither  to  trade,  and  who,  he  wrote,  "are  of 
apparently  good  disposition."  They  urged  him  to  come  among  them,  and 
he  longed  to  do  so  ;  but  Indian  wars  not  only  prevented  his  taking  this  step 
but  moreover  drove  him  back  to  the  Straits  ;  where  he  built  a  chapel,  at  St. 
Ignace,  "  the  first  sylvan  shrine  to  Catholicity  at  Mackinaw.'*  To  this  la- 
borious post  the  pious  priest  condemned  himself,  happy,  though  suffering 
all  things,  if  as  opportunity  offered  he  might  but  have  the  blessed  privilege 
of  opening  by  the  baptismal  sacrament  "the  doors  of  bliss  to  the  dying 
infant  or  more  aged  repenting  sinner."  Here  he  remained  until  summoned 
(1672)  to  join  Joliet  in  the  discovery  and  exploration  of  the  Mississippi. 


Joliet  is  one  of  "the  lesser  stars  in  the  galaxy  of  American  explorers 
and  pioneers,"  a  man  who  had  no  cotemporary  biographer.  Dr.  John  Gil- 
mary  Shea,  by  infinite  labor,  has  been  able  to  make  but  a  bare  outline 
sketch  of  his  career,  from  which  we  obtain  the  following  facts. 

The  eon  of  a  wagonmaker,  Joliet  was  born  in  Canada  in  1645.  He  was 
educated  for  the  priesthood,  but  withdrew  from  the  Society  of  Jesus  to  be- 
come a  fur  trader.  He  had,  perhaps,  says  Dr.  Shea,  no  distinct  elements  of 
character  to  raise  him  to  greatness  ;  but  he  appears  to  have  been  a  man  of 
considerable  learning  which  he  ultimately  turned  to  good  account.  In  his 
travels  as  a  fur  trader  he  obtained  a  thorough  mastery  of  the  Algonquin 
language  and  its  dialects.  Dablon  says  he  was  a  man  of  the  tact  and  pru- 
dence necessary  to  carry  him  through  the  Indian  country  ;  and  furthermore 
he  had  "a  courage  to  fear  nothing  where  all  is  to  be  feared." 

He  had,  prior  to  1673,  performed  many  perilous  missions  for  his  old 
friends,  the  Jesuits  at  Quebec,  and  had  once  been  sent  by  the  Colonial  gov- 


*SHEA  :  "Discovery  and  Exploration  of  the  Mississippi  Valley." 


THE    DISCOVERERS. 


ernment  also  to  explore  the  copper  mines  of  Lake  Superior,  of  which  Talon, 
the  intendant,  had  h^ard  many  rumors.  The  immediate  object  of  the 
journey  failed  of  attainment,  but  the  journey  itself  was  one  of  great  value  in 
other  respects  He  had  but  returned  from  this  adventure  in  the  West  when 
(1672)  he  was  commissioned  by  Governor  Frontenac  to  find  and  explore  the 
Mississippi. 


Starved  Rock — The  Pathway  to  the  Top. 


THE  DISCOVERY. 


The  wind  blew  fair;  the  white  foam  flew; 

The  furrows  followed  free; 
We  were  the  first  that  ever  burst 

Into  that  silent  sea. 

—  The  Ancient  Mariner 


THE    VOYAGE    OF    MARQUETTE    AND    JOLIET. 

1 OLIET  reached  Point  St.  Ignace  from  Quebec  on  December  8,  1672, 
CLJ  with  his  instructions  from  Governor  Frontenac.  Father  Marquette's 
journal  of  this  memorable  voyage  thus  refers  to  Joliet's  arrival: 

"The  day  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  whom  I 
had  continually  invoked  since  coming  to  the  country  of  the  Ottawas,  to  ob- 
tain from  God  the  favor  of  being  enabled  to  visit  the  nations  on  the  river 
Mississippi-  this  very  day  was  precisely  that  on  which  M.  Joliet  arrived 
with  orders  to  go  with  him  on  this  discovery.  I  was  all  the  more  delighted 
with  this  news  because  I  saw  my  plans  about  to  be  accomplished,  and  found 
myself  in  the  happy  necessity  of  exposing  my  life  for  the  salvation  of  all 
those  tribes,  especially  the  Illinois,  who,  when  I  was  at  St.  Esprit,  had 
begged  me  very  earnestly  to  bring  the  word  of  God  among  thsm." 

Champlain  had  founded  Quebec  in  1608,  thus  laying  the  corner  stone  of 
New  France  and  "building  the  hive  whence  poured  the  swarm  "of  heroic 
Recollet  and  Jesuit  Fathers,  who  within  the  next  thirty-five  years  pushed 
their  examination  of  the  interior  of  the  continent  to  the  farthest  limits  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  and  the  Great  Lakes;  and  as  the  missions  were  pushed  farther 
and  farther  westward,  the  annual  Relations  of  the  missionaries  seldom  failed 
to  contain  mention  of  the  "great  water"  to  the  still  farther  west,  of  which 


STARVED    ROCK,  LOOKING    WEST    FROM    LOVER'S    LEAP. 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  MARQUETTE  AND  JOLIET. 


the  good  Fathers'  Indian  flocks  gave  them  information.  If,  then,  they  had 
not  themselves  actually  seen  the  river  prior  to  1673,  the  Fathers  knew  per- 
fectly where  it  would  be  found  and  many  details  of  the  route  to  it;  so  that 

when  Joliet   and  Marquette  were  commis- 
TRACV        \          sioned  by  Talon  to  explore  the  river,  they 
had  only  to  follow  a  well  known 
path  to  find  it.       Nevertheless, 
during  the  winter  following  Joli- 
et's  meeting  with  Marquette   the 
two  explorers  made  every  preparation  for 
their   voyage,   gathering  information  from 
^  the  Indians  concerning  their  route  and  the 
/  people   they   might  encounter,  determined, 
writes    Marquette,    that    "if  our  enterprise 
was  hazardous  it  should  not  be  foolhardy." 


LAC 


-.  On  May  17,  1673,  the  explorers  set  out  from  St.  Ignace. 
accompanied  by  five  voyageurs,  all  in  two  birch-bark  canoes. 
For  the  voyage  they  carried  Indian  corn  and  some  jerked 
meat,  as  well  as  suitable  goods  as  presents  to  the  natives  to  be 
met  on  the  way.  "At  the  outset.  Marquette  placed  the  enter- 
prise under  the  patronage  of  the  Immaculate  Virgin,  promis- 
ing that  if  she  granted  them  success,  the  river  should  be 
named  '  The  Conception.'  This  pledge  he  strove  to  keep;  but 
an  I  Lilian  word,  the  very  meaning  of  which  has  been  disputed,  is  its  desig- 
nation, "*  Ascending  the  Fox  river  [of  Wisconsin],  crossing  the  portage  to 
the  Wisconsin  and  descending  that  river,  on  June  i7th,  they  found  them- 
selves, probably  first  of  white  men  [except  Groseilliers  and  Radisson  ?] 
since  DeSoto's  companions  fled  from  the  midnight  burial  of  their  chief,  on 
the  bosom  of  the  Father  of  Waters.  We  shall  not  follow  them  as  they  de- 
scended the  mighty  flood  to  a  point  below  the  mouth  of  the  Arkansas.  Hav- 
ing satisfied  themselves  that  the  river  did  not  flow  to  the  sea  of  Virginia, 
but  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  they  turned  back,  July  17,  to  the  north  "* 

*HINSDALE  :  "The  Old  Northwset."    The  Map  is  by  Marqaette  (greatly  reduced). 


STARVED    ROCK  I    A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


When  they  again  reached  the  mouth  of  Illinois  (Riviere  de  Divine)*,  hav- 
ing been  told  by  the  Indians  that  here  was  the  more  direct  route  to  the  Lac 
des  Illinois,  they  entered  and  followed  it  to  the  northeast,  delighted  with  the 
stream  and  the  country  it  watered.  "  We  had  never  seen  anything  like  this 
river,"  writes  Marquette,  "  for  the  richness  of  the  soil,  the  prairies  and 
woods,  the  buffaloes,  the  elks,  the  deer,  the  wild  cats,  the  bustards,  the 


wild  geese,  the  ducks,  the  paroquets  and  even  the  beavers.  It  is  made  up  of 
little  lakes  and  little  rivers.  That  upon  which  we  voyaged  is  wide,  deep 
and  gentle  for  sixty-five  leagues." 

In  ascending  the  river  Marquette  records  one  stop,  with  the  Peorias,  an 
Illinois  tribe,  the  location  not  being  mentioned;  but  he  says  he  here  "bap- 
tized a  dying  infant  a  little  while  before  it  died,  by  an  admirable  providence, 


*  Juliet  gave  the  Illinois  the  name  Divine  or  Outrelaiee,  in  compliment,  it  is  sup- 
posed, to  Frontenac's  wife,  noted  for  her  beauty,  and  Mile.  Outrelaise,  her  facinating 
friend,  who  were  called  in  court  circles,  lea  divines.— Winsor. 

Joliet's  Map  is  reduced  from  a  reproduction  in  Winsor's  "Cartier  to  Frontenac." 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  MARQUETTE  AND  JOLIET.  15 

for  the  salvation  of  its  innocent  soul,"  the  tender  record  of  undoubtedly  the 
first  baptism  on  Illinois  river.  Higher  up  the  stream  the  voyagers  found  a 
village  of  the  Illinois  called  Kaskaskia,  containing  seventy-four  cabins,  where, 
says  Marquette,  they  were  kindly  received  by  the  inhabitants,  who,  he  adds, 
"compelled  me  to  promise  to  return  and  instruct  them." 

This  village  was  located  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Illinois  river,  under 
the  early  morning  shadow  of  Starved  Rock;  and  Marquette's  record  is  thus 
the  first  mention  in  history  of  "  a  place  which  has  since  become  famous  in 
the  annals  of  western  discovery." 

The  discoverers  remained  at  Kaskaskia  but  a  short  time,  and  then  one 
of  the  chiefs  with  his  young  men  escorted  them  to  the  lake,  via  the  Chicago 
portage,  whence  they  returned  at  last  to  Green  Bay,  from  which  they  had 
set  out  in  the  beginning  of  June. 

"The  great  discovery  by  Joliet  and  Marquette  did  not  at  first  prompt 
the  French  to  any  schemes  for  planting  colonies  to  cultivate  the  rich  lands 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  a  plan  of  settlement  proposed  by  Joliet 
was  rejected  "*  by  the  Court.  It  was  only  when  the  activity  of  the  English 
in  New  York  menaced  the  French  fur  trade  that  the  struggle  for  dominion 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the  career  of  La  Salle  began. f 


*  8HKA  :  "'Catholic  Church  in  Colonial  Days." 

t  PAhKMAN  :  "  La  Salic  and  the  Dittcoverj/  of  the  Great  Went." 


THE  EATE  OF  THE  EXPLORERS. 

Ah,  weary  priest !  with  pale  hands 
On  thy  trobbing  brow  of  pain. 

—  Whit  tier. 

He  was  a  man  of  comely  form, 
Polished  and  brave,  well  learned  and  kind. 

— Puritan  Poet. 


THE    DEATH    OF    MARQUETTE. 

MARQUETTE.  and  Joliet  separated  at  Green  Pay,  never 
again  to  meet.  Marquette's  constitution  was  so  seriously 
impaired  by  the  fatigues  of  the  journey  that  he  never  after- 
ward became  a  well  man.  Illness  followed  him  so  relent- 
lessly  that  not  until  the  following  year  was  he  able  to  com- 
plete  his  report  and  send  it  to  his  Father  Superior  at  Quebec. 
In  the  fall  of  the  same  year  (1674)  he  received  from  Quebec 
an  order  to  establish  a  mission  at  Kaskaskia,  (Starved  Rock  )  His  heart 
was  in  the  work ;  and  on  October  25  he  left  Green  Bay  for  the  Illinois  His 
old  malady,  dysentery  with  hemorrhage,  returning,  however,  he  was  com- 
pelled to  winter  with  his  white  companions  at  the  mouth  of  Chicago  river, 
which  place  he  left  for  the  Illinois  river,  March  29,  1675,  reaching  Kaskas- 
kia  April  8  Here,  on  the  plain  north  of  and  across  the  river  from  Starved 
Rock,  he  then  founded  the  mission  to  which  he  gave  his  favorite  name, 
"  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Blessed  Virgin." 

But  it  was  only  for  a  little  while  that  he  was  able  to  teach  the  benighted 
Indians;  for  "continued  illness  soon  obliged  him  to  set  forth  on  that  return 
voyage  which  brought  him  to  a  lonely  grave  in  the  wilderness."  On  the  eve 
of  his  departure  from  the  village  he  convened  the  inhabitants  to  the  number 


THE  DEATH  OF  MARQUETTE.  I'J 

of  two  thousand,  on  a  meadow  hard  by,  and  there,  on  a  rude  altar,  exhibited 
four  pictures  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  explained  their  significance,  and  exhorted 
the  chiefs  and  people  to  embrace  Christianity.* 

Quitting  Kaskaskia  soon  after  Easter,  which  occurred  that  year  April 
14,  he  returned  to  the  Lake  via  the  Kankakee  portage  and  St.  Joseph  river. 
Unable  to  proceed  further,  his  companions  built  for  him  a  rude  hut,  near 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  in  which  he  died,  with  the  names  of  Jesus  and  Mary 
on  his  lips  and  his  face  radiant  with  joy.  He  was  buried  on  an  eminence 
overlooking  the  lake,  which  he  himself  had  pointed  out  for  his  resting  place. 
But  two  years  later  his  Indian  friends  from  Mackinac  removed  his  bones 
to  St.  Ignace,  where  they  were  buried  in  a  vault  under  the  floor  of  the 
log  chapel.  In  process  of  time,  the  mission  being  afterwards  abandoned, 
their  resting  place  was  forgotten  ;  but  it  was  discovered  in  1877  by  a  Michi- 
gan clergyman,  and  a  monument  has,  by  the  latter's  endeavors,  been  since 
erected  to  mark  the  spot. 

Thus  died,  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight,  one  of  the  noblest  and  purest  men 
whose  names  adorn  the  annals  of  the  northwest. 

JOLIET'S  SUBSEQUENT  CAREER. 

M.  Joliet  reached  Quebec  in  August,  1674,  but  within  sight  of  Montreal 
was  nearly  drowned,  losing  all  the  records  of  his  voyage.  He  made  a  verbal 
report  to  the  Governor,  accompanying  it  with  a  map  made  from  recollection. 
He  no  doubt  expected  some  substantial  reward,  but  was  disappointed,  at 
least  at  that  time,  though  for  this  and  other  services  he  was  later  granted  the 
island  of  Anticosti  at  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  where  in  1681  he  es- 
tablished himself  with  his  wife  and  six  servants,  and  became  interested  in 
the  fisheries.  Being  also  a  skilled  navigator  and  surveyor,  he  was  appointed 
by  Frontenac  hydrographer  at  Quebec.  In  1690  the  English  commander, 
Sir  William  Phipps,  burned  Joliet's  Anticosti  establishment  and  took  him 
and  his  wife  prisoners.  Joliet  was  subsequently  released,  and  in  1694  ex- 
plore4  Labrador  on  behalf  of  a  seal  and  whale  fishing  company.  He  died, 


*WAULACE  :  **  Illinois  and  Louisiana  under  French  Rule." 


i8 


STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


evidently  poor,  in  1699  or  1700.  His  descendants  appear  to  have  inherited 
his  virtues  and  his  talent,  and  several  of  them  have  held  positions  of  high 
trust  and  responsibility,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  in  the  modern  Do- 
minion of  Canada. 


FRONTENAC. 

(Reproduced  from  a  reduction,  in  Winsor's  "  Cartier  to  Frontenac, 
from  Suite's  "  Canadiens-Francais,"  Vol.  ii.) 


LA  SALLE. 


I  hear  the  tread  of  pioneers 

Of  nations  yet  to  be  ; 
The  first  low  wash  of  waves  where  soon 

Shall  roll  a  human  sea. 

—  Whittier. 


HIS    DREAM    OF    EMPIRE. 

IT  HAS  come  to  be  the  fashion  in  certain  quarters  to  belittle  the  character 
and  accomplishments  of  La  Salle.  While  Parkman  makes  him  second 
only  to  Champlain  as  the  greatest  of  all  French  discoverers  of  the  great  west, 
Shea  treats  him  as  simply  a  follower  of  paths  that  others  had  previously 
blazed.  Parkman  bears  testimony  to  the  heroic  persistence  of  the  man  in 
spite  of  immense  physical  difficulties  and  the  more  disheartening  machina- 
tions of  enemies,  whose  adverse  influence  was  felt  at  every  step  of  his  career 
and  at  every  point,  from  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  to  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. Dr.  Shea,  on  the  other  hand,  ascribes  his  failure  to  a  fatal  lack  of 
capacity  as  an  explorer.  "  La  Salle  was  doubtless  a  persuasive  talker  in 
setting  forth  his  projects,"  he  says,  "though  utterly  incapable  of  carrying 
out  even  the  simplest." 

There  is  an  element  of  truth  in  the  latter  view  of  La  Salle,  but  the  state- 
ment is  an  exaggeration  of  La  Salle's  real  fault.  It  is  true,  La  Salle,  strictly 
speaking,  discovered  nothing  except  the  Ohio  river — neither  the  Mississippi 
nor  its  outlet,  both  of  which  had  been  seen  by  the  Spaniard  a  hundred  years 
before  La  Salle  was  born  ;  but  these  discoveries  the  Spaniard  had  also  as 
long  ago  forgotten,  and  La  Salle's  claim  of  the  land  for  France  by  right  of 
discovery  and  occupancy  was  never  disputed.  As  to  the  Northwest,  though 


2O  STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

La  Salle  was  neither  the  first  to  explore  its  lakes  or  rivers,  he  certainly  was 
the  first  to  enter  it  as  a  settler  and  pioneer  of  the  future  settlers. 

Moses*  goss  even  further  than  Shea,  attributing  to  La  Salle  a  bickering 
spirit,  which  certainly  is  not  a  characteristic  of  the  man  as  he  is  pictured  by 
Parkman,  confessedly  the  most  competent  historian  of  this  period  and  de- 
partment of  our  American  history.  Moses  says : 

"Had  the  French  governor  [Le  Barre,  La  Salle's  enemy  at  all  times, 
as  Frontenac  was  always  his  friend?]  and  La  Salle  pooled  their  issues,  and 
instead  of  endeavoring  to  break  each  other  down  worked  together,  there  was 
nothing  to  prevent  their  building  up  a  colony  at  Fort  St,  Louis  [Starved 
Rock]  which  would  have  been  of  great  advantage  to  the  interests  of  each, 
and  exerted  a  controlling  influence  upon  the  destiny  of  New  France.  Had 
agriculture  and  permanent  settlement  been  encouraged  in  connection  with 
the  traffic  with  the  Indians,  a  prosperous  and  powerful  community  might 
have  been  established,  which,  growing  and  extending  to  other  equally  favor- 
able localities  in  the  Illinois  country,  might  in  fifty  years  have  constituted  a 
community  which  would  have  proved  an  insuperable  barrier  against  any 
foreign  encroachment,  in  consequence  of  its  ability  to  maintain  its  own  in- 
tegrity. But  the  rapacity  of  one  and  the  ambition  of  the  other  prevented 
the  accomplishment  of  such  a  result." 

Mr.  Moses  has  overlooked  the  fact  that  this  very  idea  was,  in  truth,  the 
keynote  of  La  Salle's  career  :  that  is,  to  take  possession  of  and  settle  the 
Mississippi  valley  ;  but  in  this  purpose  he  had  the  opposition  of  both  Le 
Barre,  the  governor,  and  also  the  Jesuits,  neither  of  whom  then  desired  per- 
manent settlers  about  them  to  interfere  with  their  relations  with  the  Indians. 
The  responsibility  of  the  failure  of  La  Salle's  attempts  to  colonize  the  Illinois 
rests  much  more  with  the  court  and  the  priesthood  on  the  St.  Lawrence  than 
with  La  Salle  on1  the  Illinois.  His  failures,  as  the  result  of  his  own  faults, 
must  be  attributed,  not  so  much  to  the  withering  influences  of  a  soul  con- 
sumed with  petty  quarrels  and  bickerings,  but  rather  to  his  unfortunate  ina- 
bility to  create  real  friendships  among  his  own  people,  and  to  his  besetting 


*JoHN  MOSES  :  "  History  of  Illinois." 


LA  SALLE'S  DREAM  OF  EMPIRE. 


sin  of  trusting  no  one  but  himself,  even  in  projects  requiring  for  their  suc- 
cess the  co-operation  of  large  bodies  of  men.* 

More  than  two  hundred  years  have  passed  since  La  Salle  perished  in 
the  trackless  wastes  of  the  far  Southwest,  and  his  venturous  soul  fled  to  that 
"bourne  from  which  no  traveler  returns"  ;  but  even  as  he  stood  upon  the 
summit  of  Starved  Rock  in  1682  and  1683  and  his  eye  swept  over  the  mag- 
nificent landscape,  his  prophetic  spirit  saw  in  the  then  distant  future  the 
grandeur  of  the  empire  that  was  yet  to  come,  whose  very  heart  would  throb 
in  the  fertile  lands  spread  out  before  him,  which  he  loved  to  characterize  as 
"a  terrestrial  paradise."  It  was  the  master  mind  of  La  Salle  that  first  con- 
ceived the  policy  which  led  on,  step  by  step,  from  Starved  Rock  "to  Fort 
Duquesne,  Braddock's  defeat,  and  Forbes's  march  to  the  Forks  of  the  Ohio, ' 
and  the  train  of  events  culminating  in  the  fall  of  Quebec,  f  Looking  into 
the  future,  La  Salle  saw  on  these  prairies  and  by  the  shores  of  the  Great 
Lakes  a  New  France  far  more  powerful  than  the  old,  and  this  vision,  one 
may  truly  say,  was  the  guiding  star  of  his  romantic  career.  As  the  first 
white  man  to  establish  a  settlement  upon  her  soil,  he  has  been  justly  styled 
"the  Father  of  Illinois";  but  it  was  only  when 
Wolfe  triumphed  on  the  Heights  of  Abraham  that 
the  empire  which  La  Salle  foresaw  and  devoted 
his  life  to  found,  became  a  historic  fact.  What  La 
Salle  did  not  see  was  that  the  great  law  cf  evolution 
had  destined  that  this  great  power  would  be,  not 
Norman  but  Anglo-Saxon.  \ 


*  PABKMAN  :  "  La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  the  Great 
Wesi>" 

t  HINSDALE  :  "  The  Old  Northwest." 
t  JOHN  FISKE  :  "  The  Idea  of  God." 


West  End  of  Buffalo  Rock. 


LA  SALLE'S  CAREER. 

Planting  strange  fruits  and  sunshine  on  the  shore, 
I  make  some  coast  alluring,  some  lone  isle, 
To  distant  men,  who  must  go  there  or  die. 

—  Emerson. 


HIS    EARLIER    WORK. 

ROBERT  CAVALIER,  Sieur  de  la  Salle,—  born 
in   Rouen,  1643;  educated  for  the  priesthood;  a 
Jesuit  long  enough  to  legally  sacrifice  his  fortune 
because  of  the  connection  —  came  to  America  in 
1666.      With    a    small  patrimony    as    capital    he 
set  up  as  a  feudal  lord  at  a  place  called 
La   Chine,  on   lands    granted   him   by 
e.-  the    Seminary  of   St.    Sulpice,   at    the 
most  dangerous  spot,  perhaps,  in  North 
America. 

It  is  clear  that  La  Salle's  purpose  in  com- 
ing to  America  was  a  greater  one  than  to 
establish  himself  as  landlord  of  a  frightfully 
dangerous  wilderness  ;  for  we  find  him  studying  Indian  languages  and  In- 
dian nature,  both  of  which  he  came  to  understand  thoroughly  and  complete- 
ly. His  relations  with  the  natives  were  always  singularly  happy. 

The  establishment  of  La  Salle  at  La  Chine  was  a  means  only  to  a  great 
er  end.     In    1669  he   made  his  first  expedition  of  discovery,  and  it  is  now 
generally  conceded  that  in  that  year  and  in  1670  he  explored  the  Ohio  river 
at  least  to  the  falls  at  Louisville,  rmd  possibly  to  the  Mississippi  as  well  as 
the  Illinois  river. 


LA  SALLE'S  EARLIER  WORK.  23 


In  1674,  the  discovery  of  Joliet  and  Marquette  becoming  known  in  Cana- 
da, disclosed  the  truth  which  La  Salle  had  probably  come  to  America  to  es- 
tablish. If  the  latter  were  the  fact,  as  seems  probable,  the  current  of  his 
purpose  was  thereby  changed.  Since,  therefore,  the  Spaniards  had  never 
taken  possession  of  the  Mississippi,  it  was  La  Salle's  ambition  now  to  profit 
by  that  oversight,  and  by  reaching  its  mouth  at  the  Gulf  via  the  Illinois,  he 
could  take  verbal  possession,  at  least,  of  the  valley,  and  by  closing  the  mouth 
with  a  fort  and  by  placing  others  along  the  rivers  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf, 
he  could  hold  it  against  all  others,  and  thus  add  the  best  part  of  a  continent 
to  the  possessions  of  Louis  XIV.  in  America.  Then  the  center  of  French 
dominion  in  North  America  could  be  transferred  from  bleak  and  inhospita- 
ble Canada  to  the  fertile  fields  of  the  fruitful  valley,  which  by  agriculture 
and  trade  would  sooner  or  later  become  a  mighty  empire.  It  was  a  grand 
and  eminently  practicable  conception,  which  not  many  years  after  La  Salle's 
death  became  the  policy  of  the  French  government,  with  what  success  the 
history  of  the  Franco-English  struggle  in  America  during  the  eighteenth  cen- 
century  amply  testifies. 

Returning  to  France  in  1674,  La  Salle  unfolded  his  great  project  at  the 
court  of  Louis  the  Magnificent.  In  reward  for  his  discovery  of  the  Ohio  he 
was  ennobled  ;  and  having  the  friendship  of  Frontenac,  the  governor  of 
Canada,  he  obtained  liberal  grants  of  lands  and  exclusive  trading  privileges 
both  on  Lake  Ontario  and  in  the  new  lands  of  the  Illinois  country,  which  he 
was  to  explore  and  settle — at  his  own  individual  expense,  however. 

In  the  summer  of  1679,  therefore,  he  built  on  Lake  Erie  the  Griffin,  the 
first  vessel,  except  the  Indian's  canoe,  to  sail  the  great  lakes  ;  but  while  re- 
turning from  Mackinac  and  Green  Bay  to  Fort  Frontenac  with  her  first  cargo 
of  furs,  the  Griffin  was  lost  with  all  on  board. 

La  Salle  meantime  had  pushed  on  to  the  St.  Joseph  river,  at  the  mouth 
of  which  he  built  Fort  Miamis,  thus  securing  the  key  to  the  Illinois  via  the 
Kankakee.  Here  he  heard  rumors  of  the  loss  of  the  Griffin;  but  his  purpose 
never  faltered.  Crossing  the  portage  to  the  head  waters  of  the  Kankakee 
river,  he  launched  eight  canoes  with  thirty-five  men,  including  the  faithful 


24  STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

Tonty,  upon  the  Illinois,  down  which  he  paddled  until  he  came  to  Starved 
Rock,  or,  rather,  to  the  great  Indian  town  "  La  Vantura,"  on  the  plain  north 
and  west  of  the  Rock.  The  town  was  deserted,  but  La  Salle  opened  the 
corn  caches  of  the  Indians  and  removed  such  as  he  needed,  leaving  abundant 
presents  in  payment.  Then  he  pushed  on  to  the  present  Peoria  lake,  where 
he  built  another  fort  called  Crevecoeur,  for  he  was  now  convinced,  by  the  non- 
arrival  of  men  and  supplies  of  the  Griffin,  that  his  vessel  was  indeed  lost. 

Here  he  put  another  boat  on  the  stocks,  in  which  he  purposed  to  sail  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  ;  and  then,  leaving  Tonty  with  fifteen  of  his 
men  to  complete  the  ship,  he  started  for  Canada  to  repair  his  loss.  It  was 
on  this  return-  journey,  depressed  by  his  loss  and  fearful  for  the  future,  that 
early  in  March,  1680,  he  a  second  time  reached  the  Illinois  town  La  Vantum, 
now  buried  in  the  desolation  of  very  early  spring.  La  Salle's  men  "saw 
buffalo  wading  in  the  snow,  afld  they  killed  one  of  them."*  On  the  follow- 
ing day,  while  the  hunters  were  smoking  the  meat  of  the  buffalo,  La  Salle 
went  out  to  reconnoiter,  .and  presently  met  three  Indians,  one  of  whom 
proved  to  be  Chassagoac,  the  principal  chief  of  the  Illinois.  The  interview 
(with  the  latter)  was  so  favorable  that  the  chief  at  its  close  promised  to  be- 
friend Tonty  at  Crevecoeur  "After  several  days  spent  at  the  deserted 
town,  La  Salle  prepared  to  resume  his  journey,"  says  Parkman.  "Before 
his  departure  his  attention  was  attracted  to  the  remarkable  cliff  of  yellow 
sandstone,  now  called  Starved  Rock,  a  mile  or  more  above  the  village,  —  a 
natural  fortress,  which  a  score  of  resolute  white  men  might  make  good 
against  a  host  of  savages ;  and  [when  he  arrived  at  Fort  Miamis  and  found 
two  of  his  men  there  waiting  for  him,  he  sent  by  them  to]  Tonty  an  order  to 
examine  it  and  make  it  his  stronghold  in  case  of  need."f  The  Rock  was 
indeed  admirably  adapted  for  La  Salle's  purpose.  It  commanded  the  river, 
the  highway  for  all  travel  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf,  and  in  addition  to  be- 
ing in  the  midst  of  a  fertile  country,  it  overlooked  the  great  town  which 
would  be  the  center  of  an  immense  Indian  traffic. 


*PABKMAN  :  "La  Salle,"  etc.,  p.  177. 
fPAKKMAH  :  "La  Salle"  etc.,  p.  178. 


Hear  ye  not  the  shrill  piping  sc  -earns  on  the  air  ? 
Up,  Braves  !  For  the  conflict  prepare  ye — prepare  ! 
Aroused  from  the  canebrake,  far  south,  by  your  drum, 
With  beaks  whet  for  carnage,  the  Battle  Birds  come. 
**•*•**•* 

On  the  forehead  of  Earth  strikes  the  Sun  in  his  might, 
Oh,  gibe  me  with  glances  as  searching  as  light, 
In  the  front  of  the  onslaught  to  single  each  crest, 
Till  my  hatchet  grows  red  on  their  bravest  and  best.* 

— Indian  War  S 


THE    IROyUOIS  RAID, 

LA  SALLE  had  scarcely  bade  farewell  to  Tonty  at  Crevecreur  when  eight 
of  the  men  with  the  latter,  discouraged  by  the  news  brought  by  La 
Salle's  messengers  to  Tonty  from  Fort  Miamis,  of  the  loss  of  the  Griffin, 
mutinied,  and  having  plundered  the  fort  and  destroyed  the  ship,  deserted 
while  Tonty  was  examining  Starved  Rock  in  accordance  with  La  Salle's 
order.  Having  sent  four  men  by  different  routes  to  Canada  to  inform  La 
Salle  of  this  latest  disaster,  Tonty  was  left  at  the  Rock  with  but  five  white 
companions,  two  of  whom  were  Membre  and  Ribourde,  Recollet  friars. 

For  greater  show  of  confidence,  this  little  band  of  La  Salle's  faithful 


*WAB  SONG— Pe-na-se-wug.    From  the  Algonquin  of  Schoolcraft,  by  C.  F.  Hoffman, 
See  Bchoolcraft's  "Western  Scenes," 


26  STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

followers  took  up  their  residence  with  the  Indians,  hoping  to  maintain  them- 
selves until  La  Salle's  return.  Here  they  spent  the  opening  spring  and  sum- 
mer. The  Illinois  among  whom  they  dwelt  were  an  aggregation  of  distinct 
though  kindred  tribes — the  Kaskaskias,  the  Peorias,  the  Kahokias,  the  Tama- 
roas,  the  "Moingona  and  others,*  and  were  reputed  a  cowardly  and  rather 
contemptible  race  of  Indians. 

The  summer  had  passed  uneventfully,  and  "for  the  Frenchmen  time 
doubtless  hung  heavy  on  their  hands ;  for  nothing  can  surpass  the  va- 
cant monotony  of  an  Indian  town  when  there  is  neither  hunting,  nor  war, 
nor  feasts,  nor  dancing,  nor  gambling  to  beguile  the  lagging  hours.''  And 
so  out  of  the  interminable  monotony  came  the  loth  of  September ;  when 
"suddenly  the  village  was  awakened  from  its  lethargy  as  by  the  crash  of  a 
thunderbolt."  An  army  of  Iroquois  from  New  York  had  been  seen  approach- 
ing to  attack  them.  On  the  nth  the  attack  came.  Tonty  and  his  few  men, 
who  then  were  suspected  as  allies  of  the  Iroquois  and  had  the  day  before 
barely  escaped  with  their  lives  from  the  infuriated  Illinois,  joined  with  the 
latter,  who  were  greatly  outnumbered  by  the  Iroquois. 

The  scene  of  the  struggle  was  the  prairie  just  at  the  edge  of  the  woods 
bordering  the  Big  Vermilion  river  near  its  mouth.  The  Illinois  had  crossed 
the  river  now  bearing  their  name  and  had  attacked  the  enemy,  when  Tonty, 
desirous  at  all  hazards,  for  the  sake  of  La  Salle's  interests,  of  preserving 
peace,  or  at  least  of  saving  the  Illinois  from  their  almost  certain  massacre, 
attempted  to  mediate,  and,  at  infinite  personal  risk,  did  obtain  a  cessation  of 
the  battle  and  a  promise  from  the  Iroquois,  who  were  at  peace,  nominally  at 
least,  with  the  French,  to  abandon  their  purpose. 

The  Iroquois,  however,  soon  repented  and  as  quickly  violated  all  their 
promises.  Tonty  and  his  followers  were  compelled  to  leave  the  village  and 
that  part  of  the  country,  while  the  Iroquois,  balked  of  their  living  prey, 
"wreaked  their  fury  on  the  Illinois  dead.  They  dug  up  the  graves,  they 
threw  down  the  scaffolds.  Some  of  the  bodies  they  burned  ;  some  they  threw 


n'AKKMAN  :  "  La  Salle,"  etc.,  207  ft 


THE  IROQUOIS  RAID.  2J 


to  the  dogs ;  some,  it  is  affirmed,  they  ate.  "*  The  Illinois  had  escaped  down 
the  river  by  keeping  together  as  a  compact  mass  until  they  reached  its  mouth. 
Then  some  crossed  the  Mississippi  to  the  western  side  ;  others  continued  on 
down  the  river,  while  the  Tamaroas,  remaining  near  the  mouth  of  the  Illi- 
nois, were  destroyed  by  the  Iroquois. 

La  Salle  with  four  men  reached  the  scene  on  his  return  from  Canada 
in  November.  But  no  saluting  whoop  greeted  their  ears  from  the  village,  as 
they  had  expected.  ' '  They  passed  Starved  Rock,  but  as  La  Salle  ascended  its 
lofty  top  he  saw  no  palisades,  no  cabins,  no  sign  of  human  hand,  and  still 
its  primeval  crest  of  forest  overhung  the  gliding  river,  "f  The  town  was 
desolate.  They  landed.  "Before  them  lay  a  plain  once  swarming  with 
wild  human  life,  now  a  waste  of  devastation  and  death.  *  *  Near  at  band 
was  the  burial  ground  of  the  village.  The  travelers  sickened  with  horror  as 
they  entered  its  revolting  precincts.  *  *  Every  grave  had  been  rifled.  A 
hyena  warfare  had  been  waged  against  the  dead.  La  Salle  knew  the  work 
of  the  Iroquois." 

La  Salle  was  consumed  with  alarm  for  the  fate  of  Tonty;  but  finding 
no  trace  of  white  men  among  the  remains,  he  hoped  to  find  him  still  alive,  and 
in  that  hope  pushed  on  to  the  mouth  of  the  Illinois,  trusting  to  get  some 
clue  to  his  fate  or  his  whereabouts.  At  the  mouth  of  the  river  he  aban- 
doned the  trail  and  returned  to  Fort  Miamis,  where  he  spent  the  winter, 
while  Tonty  and  his  companions,  after  most  fearful  suffering,  found  a 
refuge  at  Green  Bay. 


*PABEMAN  :  Ibid.,  p.  218.    This  Indian  battle  is  described  by  Parkman  in  a  most 
spirited  chapter,  to  which  the  reader  is  referred. 
:  Tbid.  p.  191  et  seq. 


STARVED  ROCK  TORTiriED. 

Strangers  came  to  build  a  tower, 
And  threw  their  ashes  overland. 

—  Tli  or  en  n. 

LA  SALLE  TAKES  POSSESSION. 

LA  SALLE  spent  the  winter  of  1680-81  at  Fort  Miamis,  organizing  a 
league  of  the  western  Indians  to  resist  the  Iroquois,  the  league's 
principal  town  to  be  located  near  the  Rock  on  Illinois  river.  Then  he  re- 
turned to  Canada  via  Mackinac,  where  he  again  met  Tonty.  Having 
arranged  his  affairs,  he  returned  in  November,  1681,  to  Fort  Miamis,  where 
he  found  his  Indian  allies,  with  eighteen  of  whom  and  twenty-three  French- 
men, including  Tonty,  he  set  out  again  for  the  Illinois.  They  passed  the 
site  of  the  future  Chicago,  January  4,  1862,  and  pushed  on  without  stop- 
ping to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  which  he  reached  April  9,  1682,  Here 
La  Salle,  "in  the  name  of  the  most  high,  mighty,  invincible  Prince,  Louis 
fourteenth  of  the  name,"  took  possession  of  the  country  and  named  it  Louisi- 
ana, "the  weather-beaten  voyagers  joining  their  voices  in  the  great  hymn 
of  Vexilla  Regis,  which  closed  the  ceremony" — 

"The  Banners  of  Heaven's  King  advance, 
The  mystery  of  the  Cross  shines  forth." 

"On  that  day  the  realm  of  France  received  on  parchment  a  stupendous 
accession " — a  region  that  stretched  from  the  Alleghenies  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  from  the  Rio  Grande  and  fhe  Gulf  to  the  farthest  springs  of  the 
Missouri, — "all  by  the  virtue  of  a  feeble  human  voice,  inaudible  at  half  a 
mile."* 


*PAHKMAN  :  "La  Salle,"  etc. 


LA    SALLE.' 


NOTE. — The  above  portrait  is  said  by  Winsor,  in  "  Narrative  and 
Critical  History,''  to  be  based  on  an  engraving  preserved  in  the 
library  of  Rouen,  entitled  "  Cavilli  de  la  Salle  Fran9ois,"  and  is  the 
only  picture  of  La  Salle,  except  one,  meriting  notice. 


STARVED  ROCK  FORTIFIED.  2Q 


La  Salle  had  now  written  his  name  in  history;  there  remained  the 
greater  task  of  consummating  the  schemes  of  his  pregnant  brain :  the  founding 
of  a  permanent  colony  on  the  Illinois  and  the  abandonment  of  the  route  to 
France  via  Canada  for  one  via  Mississippi  and  the  Gulf  The  Illinois  col- 
ony at  Starved  Rock,  the  key  of  the  situation,  was  to  serve  "  the  double  pur- 
pose of  a  bulwark  against  the  Iroquois  and  a  place  of  storage  for  the  furs  of 
all  the  western  tribes;  and  he  hoped  in  the  following  year  to  secure  an  out- 
let for  this  colony  and  for  all  the  trade  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  by 
occupying  the  mouth  of  that  river  by  a  fort  and  another  colony."* 

At  the  moment  of  his  triumph,  as  he  returned  from  the  Gulf,  La  Salle 
was  taken  with  a  dangerous  illness  and  became  unable  to  proceed.  He  sent 
Tonty  forward  to  Mackinac,  therefore,  to  dispatch  his  report  to  France  and 
then  repair  to  the  Rock.  In  September,  however,  the  two  men  met  at 
Mackinac,  where,  hearing  a  rumor  of  a  coming  attack  on  the  western  Indi- 
ans by  the  Iroquois  (which  if  successful  would  be  the  ruination  of  his  pro- 
ject), La  Salle  abandoned  his  intention  of  going  immediately  to  France,  and 
with  Tonty,  repaired  at  once  to  the  Rock,  where,  in  December,  1682,  theyi 
began  to  entrench  themselves.  "They  cut  away  the  forest  that  crowned  the, 
Rock,  built  storehouses  and  dwellings  of  its  remains,  dragged' timber  up  the: 
rugged  pathway,  and  encircled  the  summit  with  a' palisade." 

Thus  the  winter  passed.  The  Indians,  who  saw  in  La  Salle  their  defense 
from  the  Iroquois,  "gathered  around  his  stronghold  like  the  timerous  peas- 
antry of  the  middle  ages  round  the  rock  built  castle  of  their  feudal  lord. 
From  the  wooden  ramparts  of  St.  Louis,  high  and  inaccessible  as  an  eagle's 
nest,  .  .  .  La  Salle  looked  down  on  a  concourse  of  wild  human  life. 
Lodges  of  bark  and  rushes,  or  cabins  of  logs,  were  clustered  on  the  open 
plain  or  along  the  edges  of  the  bordering  forests  Squaws  labored,  warriors 
lounged  in  the  sun,  naked  children  whooped  and  gamboled  on  the  grass 
Beyond  the  river,  a  mile  and  a  half  to  the  left,  the  banks  were  studded  once 
more  with  the  lodges  of  the  Illinois,  who  to  the  number  of  six  thousand  had 
returned  since  their  defeat  to  this  their  favorite  dwelling  place.  Scattered 

*PABKMAN  :  "La  Salle,"  etc, 


LA  SALLE'S  COLONY 

OB  i£h.«  HJiuois , 
FROM  THE  MAP  OF  FRANQUELIN, 

11584, 


STARVED  ROCK  FORTIFIED.  31 

along  the  valley,  or  over  the  neighboring  prairie,  were  the  cantonments  of  a 
half  score  of  other  tribes,  and  fragmentsof  tribes,  gathered  under  the  protecting 
aegis  of  the  French — Shawanoes  from  the  Ohio,  Abenakis  from  Maine,  Mi- 
amis  from  the  sources  of  the  Kankakee,  with  others  whose  barbarous  names 
are  hardly  worth  the  record  [in  all  four  thousand  warriors,  or  twenty  thou- 
sand souls] .  Nor  were  these  La  Salle's  only  dependents.  By  the  terms  of 
his  patent  he  held  seignorial  rights  over  this  wild  domain;  and  he  now  began 
to  grant  it  out  in  parcels  to  his  followers.  These,  however,  were  as  yet  but 
a  score;  a  lawless  band,  trained  in  forest  license."* 

The  village  of  the  Shawanoes  was  probably  located  on  the  edge  of  the 
bluff  south  of  Starved  Rock,  at  the  intersection  of  the  two  ravines,  where 
the  remains  of  their  rude  earthwork  may  still  be  traced. 


*PAEKMAN  :  '"La  SaUe,"  etc.,  p.  295  et  seq.  The  Map,  p.  30,  is  from  the  same  work. 
The  picture  below  is  from  "  Wisconsin,"  lu  "The  Stories  of  the  States"  series  of  his- 
tories. 


faking  Possession  of  Louisiana. 


KISMET. 

The  sequel  of  to-day  unsolders  all 
The  goodliest  fellowship  of  famous  Knights 
Whereof  this  world  has  record.     Such  a  sleep 
They  sleep — the  men  I  loved. 

—  Tennyson  :   ' '  Morte  d"1  Arthur. 

FAILURE  AND  DEATH 

IN  spite  of  difficulties  and  hindrances  which  to  other  men  would  have 
seemed  insurmountable,  La  Salle  had  succeeded,  and  the  corner  stone  of  a 
new  empire  had  been  laid.  It  only  remained  to  rear  the  superstructure  on 
La  Salle's  foundation.  Unfortunately,  Frontenac  had  been  recalled  and 
Le  Barre  in  Canada  "reigned  in  his  stead."  La  Salle  had  his  faults;  but 
withal,  had  Le  Barre  been  his  friend,  as  he  might  have  been,  and  not  his 
enemy,  as  he  was,  the  course  of  American  history  might  have  been  changed. 

La  Salle  plead  with  Le  Barre  for  his  rights  and  to  be  freed  from  the 
machinations  of  courtiers,  fur  traders  and  an  unfriendly  priesthood,  but  all 
in  vain.  The  colony  in  its  present  state  was,  therefore,  foreordained  to  fail- 
ure. Whereupon  La  Salle,  leaving  the  faithful  Tonty  to  protect  his 
interests  on  the  Illinois,  proceeded  to  France  to  organize  a  colony  which 
should  proceed  to  the  Illinois  via  the  Gulf  and  the  Mississippi,  taking  pos- 
session of  the  mouth  of  the  latter;  and  thus  La  Salle  and  the  Illinois  could 
be  freed  from  their  perennial  menace,  the  provincial  government  at  Quebec 

As  always  at  the  court  of  Louis,  La  Salle  was  successful.  Several  ves- 
sels and  some  four  hundred  colonists  sailed  in  1684  for  the  Mississippi, 
while  La  Forest  was  specially  commissioned  to  take  command  of  La  Salle's 
property  in  Canada,  and  Tonty  restored  to  the  command  at  Fort  St.  Louis, 


FAILURE  AND  DEATH. 


3:1 


Le  Barre  being  in  a  letter  accompaning  these  commissions  especially  scourged 
by  his  royal  master,  the  King. 

Unfortunately,  the  command  of  the  vessels  while  at  sea  was  given  to 
another;  there  was  friction  among  the  leaders,  and  finally  a  storm  drove 
them  to  a  haven  west  of  the  mouth  of  the  great  river,  and  a  landing  was  ef- 
fected on  the  shore  of  the  present  state  of  Texas.  The  rest  is  a  tale  of  mis- 
erable disappointment,  suffering,  treachery,  failure  and  death.  While  mak- 
ing a  journey  in  search  of  the  lost  Mississippi  La 
Salle  was  murdered  by  his  own  men  on  Trinity 
river,  Texas,  March  19,  1687.  A  few  of  the  col- 
onists, including  his  brother,  Jean  Cavelier,  and  the 
faithful  Joutel,  reached  Fort  St.  Louis  (Starved 
Rock);  a  few  had  returned  to  France;  the  rest  mis- 
serably  perished. 

"Thus  in  the  vigor  of  his  manhood,  at  the  age 
of  forty-three,  died  Robert  Gavelier  de  la  Salle, 
'  one  of  the  greatest  men,'  writes  Tonty,  'of  the 
age';  without  question  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
explorers  whose  names  live  in  history." 

"It  is  easy  to  reckon  up  his  defects,  but  it  is 
not  easy  to  hide  from  sight  the  Roman  virtues 
that  redeemed  them,"  writes  Parkman.  "Beset 
by  a  throng  of  enemies,  he  stands,  like  the  King 
of  Isarel,  head  and  shoulders  above  them  all.  He 
was  a  tower  of  adamant,  against  whose  impregna- 
ble front  hardship  and  danger,  the  rage  of  man 
and  of  the  elements,  the  southern  sun,  the  north- 
ern blast,  fatigue,  famine  and  disease,  delay,  dis- 
appointment and  deferred  hope  emptied  their 
quivers  in  vain.  That  very  pride,  which  Coriola- 
nus  like,  declared  itself  most  sternly  in  the  thickest 


NOTE.— This  is  a  reproduction  (from  Windsor:  "Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  Amer- 
ica") of  a  reproduction  in  Margry's  "Memories,"  etc.,  of  an  old  copper  plate  published  a 
few  years  after  La  Salle's  death.  It  was  by  Van  der  Gucht,  and  appears  in  the  London  edi- 
tion (1608)  of  Hennepin's  "New  Discovery."  The  face  of  La  Salle,  enlarged,  appears  as  the 
initial  to  a  previous  chapter  of  this  "Sketch"  (p.  22.) 


FAILURE  AND  DEATH.  35 


press  of  foes,  has  in  it  something  to  challenge  admiration.  Never,  under 
the  impenetrable  mail  of  paladin  or  crusader,  beat  a  heart  of  more  intrepid 
metal  than  within  the  stoic  panoply  that  armed  the  breast  of  La  Salle.  To 
estimate  aright  the  marvels  of  his  patient  fortitude  one  must  follow  his 
track  through  the  vast  scene  of  his  interminable  journeyings,  those  thousands 
of  weary  miles  of  forest,  marsh  and  river,  where  again  and  again,  in  the  bit- 
terness of  baffled  striving,  the  untiring  pilgrim  pushed  onward  toward  the 
goal  which  he  never  was  to  attain.  America  owes  him  an  enduring  memo- 
ry; for,  in  this  masculine  figure,  she  sees  the  pioneer  who  guided  her  to  the 
possession  of  her  richest  heritage." 


The  Lambert  Tree  Statue  of  La  Salle, 
Lincoln  Park,  Chicago. 


LA  SALLE'S  SUCCESSORS. 

His  step  is  firm,  his  eye  is  keen, 
Nor  years  in  brawl  and  battle  spent, 
Nor  toil,  nor  wounds,  nor  pain  have  bent 

The  lordly  frame  of  old  Castin. 

—Scott. 

TWO    HUNDRED    YEARS    AGO. 


A  veteran  of  the  Sicilian  wars,  in  which  he  had  a  hand  blown  off  by  a 
grenade,  whom  La  Salle  met  in  Paris  in  1678,  is  one  of  the  most  superb 
figures  in  the  annals  of  the  Mississippi  valley.  His  industry  and  energy, 
his  bravery  and  his  tact,  his  integrity  and  his  faithfulness,  his  honorable 
character  and  amiable  disposition,  unite  to  differentiate  him  from  all 
those  whose  names  as  the  lesser  stars  crowd  the  earlier  pages  of  those  an- 
nals. Parkman  calls  him,  "  That  brave,  loyal  and  generous  man,  always  vig- 
ilant and  always  active,  beloved  and  feared  alike  by  white  man  and  by  red." 
Mrs.  Catherwood*  says  :  "La  Salle  is  a  definite  figure  in  the  popular  mind 
But  La  Salle's  greater  friend  is  known  only  to  historians  and  students.  To 
me  the  finest  fact  in  the  Norman  explorer's  career  is  the  devotion  he  com- 
manded in  Henri  de  Tonty.  No  stupid  dreamer,  no  ruffian  at  heart,  no  be- 
trayer of  friendships,  no  mere  blundering  woodsman  —  as  La  Salle  has  been 
outlined  by  his  enemies  —  could  have  bound  to  himself  such  a  man  as  Tonty. 


*MBS.  MARY  HABTWELL  CATHKBWOOD  :  "The  Story  of  Tonty." 


ME  UBftABY 
OF  m 

UNIVERSITY  Of  ILL 


LA  SALLE'S  SUCCESSORS.  37 

The  love  of  this  friend,  and  the  words  this  friend  has  left  on  record,  thus 
honor  La  Salle.  And  we  who  like  courage  and  steadfastness  and  gentle 
courtesy  in  man  owe  much  honor  which  has  never  been  paid  to  Henri  de 
Tonty." 

Tonty,  while  La  Salle  was  making  his  last  voyage  to  France,  was  removed 
from  the  command  of  Fort  St  Louis  by  order  of  Le  Barre,  who  was  deter- 
mined to  ruin  La  Salle ;  but  he  remained  to  keep  watch  and  ward  over  La 
Salle's  interests  at  La  Rocher.  The  next  year,  however,  the  King  reinstated 
him  as  La  Salle's  commandant  at  the  Rock.  He  no  sooner  heard  at  Macki- 
nac  of  La  Salle's  landing  and  earlier  disasters  on  the  Gulf,  than  he  prepared 
at  his  own  cost  an  expedition  for  his  relief,  composed  of  twenty-five  French- 
men and  eleven  Indians.  He  went  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  but  find- 
ing no  trace  of  the  colony,  returned  to  the  Arkansas,  where  six  of  his  men 
volunteered  to  remain,  two  of  whom  afterwards  rescued  La  Salle's  brother. 
Cavelier,  Joutel  and  others,  who,  with  unpardonable  ingratitude,  carefully 
concealed  the  fact  of  La  Salle's  death,  even  while  they  accepted  for  months 
Tonty's  hospitality  on  Starved  Rock,  and  took  from  him,  on  La  Salle's  con- 
tingent order  written  before  his  death,  furs  sufficient  to  carry  Cavelier,  at 
least,  in  good  circumstances  back  to  France. 

Tonty  after  La  Salle's  death,  remained  some  time  in  command  of  Fort  St. 
Louis  as  La  Salle's  representative.  In  1690,  however,  he  addressed  a  peti- 
tion to  Ponchartrain,  the  minister  at  Paris,  reciting  that  though  he  was 
commissioned  and  had  served  as  captain  for  many  years,  he  had  received  no 
pay.  Frontenac,  who  by  this  time  was  again  Governor  of  Canada,  endorsed 
Tonty's  petition,  in  consequence  of  which  he  and  La  Forest,  another  faith- 
ful lieutenant  of  La  Salle,  were  granted  the  proprietorship  of  Fort  St.  Louis, 
where  they  carried  on  a  trade  in  furs. 

The  station  was  a  most  important  one,  as  we  have  seen,  both  politically 
and  commercially.  It  was  the  most  considerable  Indian  village  in  the  Illi- 
nois country,  having  a  population  ranging,  according  to  circumstances,  from 
nothing  to  twenty  thousand  souls,  but  averaging,  at  times  of  peace,  about 
eight  thousand.  The  lodges  were  built  along  the  river  bank  for  a  distance 


STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


of  a  mile  or  more,  while  the   meadows  were  extensively  cultivated,  yielding 
large  crops,  chiefly  of  Indian  corn. 

In  1696,  the  King  issued  an  order  "abandoning  Mackillimackinac  and 
other  outposts  on  the  lakes,  as  well  as  all  other  advanced  posts  except  Fort 
St.  Louis,  in  the  Illinois,  which  the  King  wishes  maintained  on  condition 
that  Sieurs  De  la  Forest  and  Tonti,  to  whom  he  reserves  the  concession, 
should  not  bring  or  cause  to  be  brought  any  beaver  into  the  colony."  Char- 
levoix*  says  :  "  I  have  been  unable  to  ascertain  on 
whose  advice  the  King's  council  adopted  this  reso- 
lution. The  excursions  of  the  Canadians  into  new 
countries  certainly  ruined  the  commerce  of  New 
France  [Canada] ;  introduced  frightful  libertinage; 
rendered  the  nation  contemptible  among  all  the 
tribes  on  the  continent,  and  raised  insurmounta- 
ble obstacles  to  the  progress  of  religion." 

Whatever  the  cause  of  the  above  order,  it  is 
true  that  during  the  few  years  after  La  Salle's 
death  the  influence  and  trade  of  the  Rock  de- 
clined, both  because  of  the  dispersion  of  the  resi- 
dent tribes  by  Indian  raids,  and  also  because  the 
influences  at  work  in  Canada  against  La  Salle  and 
his  project  had  succeeded  in  changing  the  route 
to  the  Mississippi  from  the  Illinois  to  that  via  the 
Fox  river  portage  to  the  Wisconsin,  f 

In  1702  Tonty  was  directed  to  join  D'Iberville 
in  lower  Louisiana,  while  La  Forest  was  recalled 
to  Canada.  Then  for  the  first  time  the  fort  was  of- 
ficially abandoned.  It  was  re-occupied  from  time 
to  time  by  coureurs  des  bois,  as  an  illicit  trading 
post,  and  formally  again  in  1718,  when  a  number 


*CHABLEVOIX  :  "'History  of  New  France,"  V.,  181. 
fWALLAOE  :  "Illinois  and  Louisiana  under  French 
Rule." 


Canyon  near  Starved  Rock. 


LA  SALLE'S  SUCCESSORS. 


of  traders  resided  there;  but  when  Charlevoix  passed  down  the  river  in  1721 
he  found  it  abandoned,  only  the  ruins  of  its  palisades  remaining.* 

But  little  is  known  of  Tonty  after  he  joined  D'Iberville;  and  Charlevoix 
says  he  died  at  Fort  St.  Louis  on  the  Mobile  river,  at  about  the  age  of  fifty- 
four.  N.  Matson.f  of  Princeton,  in  his  lifetime  a  collector  of  Indian  and 
French  Indian  reminiscences,  has  printed  a  tradition,  which  he  says  he 
heard  from  descendants  of  the  old  coureurs,  old  residents  now  on  the  Amer- 
ican Bottom,  who  had  it  as  it  was  handed  down  from  father  to  son,  as  was 
the  custom  among  primitive  peoples  everywhere.  The  story  is  that  Tonty, 
years  after  1702,  returned  to  the  Rock,  an  old  and  broken  man,  where  he 
died,  revealing  his  identity  at  the  supreme  moment  to  the  awe-struck  Ind- 
ians and  traders  who  had  borne  him  to  the  summit  where  he  had  so  long 
commanded.  Let  us  hope,  if  Tonty's  brave  heart  and  gentle  spirit  could 
find  solace  and  rest  dying  here,  that  it  was  so.  But  if,  as  this  legend  further 
says,  Tonty's  body  was  buried  at  the  foot  of  Starved  Rock  where  the  waters 
of  the  quiet  Illinois  would  wash  its  southern  segment,  the  living  of  to-day 
have  still  a  duty  to  perform:  the  erection  of  a  stone  to  mark  his  last  resting 
place. 


*PABKMAN  :  "LaSalle,  etc.,"  411.    Note. 

fMATSON  :  "French  and  Indians  on  Illinois  River." 


THE  MISSIONS. 

Oh,  the  generations  old, 

Over  whom  no  church-bells  tolled, 

Christless,  lifting  up  blind  eyes 

To  the  silence  of  the  skies. 
The  bells  of  the  Roman  mission 

That  call  from  their  turrets  twain 
To  the  boatman  on  the  river, 

To  the  hunter  on  the  plain. 

—  Whittier. 

THE    IMMACULATE    CONCEPTION. 

THE  earlier  American  Catholic  missionaries  to  the  Indians  of  North 
America  were  to  a  degree  distinguished  for  "  heroic  self-devotion,  ener- 
gy of  purpose,  purity  of  motive,  holiness  of  design."  Nowhere  can  be  found 
' '  more  that  is  sublime  even  to  eyes  blinded  by  the  glare  of  human  greatness ' ' 
than  in  the  biographies  of  these  martyrs  of  the  American  wilderness.  Park- 
man's  volume,  "The  Jesuits  in  North  America,"  is  one  continuous  tale  of 
Christian  heroism  and  zeal,  which  has  not  been  surpassed  by  any  age  of  the 
church  in  any  clime.  The  missionaries  who  sacrificed  all  things,  suffered  all 
things,  endured  all  things,  had  not  all  passed  from  earth  until  these  men,  at 
least,  had  met  death  for  Christ's  sake  and  his  church. 

We  have  seen  how,  in  1675,  the  gentle  Marquette,  the  last  of  this  line 
of  Jesuit  martyrs,  established  at  the  Illinois  town  the  mission  which  he  called 
the  "Immaculate  Conception";  how,  reaching  the  village,  April  8,  he  went 
from  cabin  to  cabin  instructing  the  inmates.  "Then,  when  all  were  suffi- 
ciently aware  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Cross  to  follow  his  discourse,  he  con- 
voked a  general  meeting  on  a  beautiful  prairie.  There  before  their  wonder- 


THE  IMMACULATE  CONCEPTION.  4! 


ing  eyes  he  raised  his  altar,  and  .'  .  .  they  beheld  him  offer  the  holy 
sacrifice  of  the  mass,  on  the  very  day  when,  over  sixteen  centuries  before,  the 
God  he  preached  had  instituted  it  in  the  upper  room  in  Jerusalem.  Thus  on 
Maundy  Thursday  was  possession  taken  of  Illinois  in  the  name  of  Catholicity 
— of  Jesus  and  of  Mary."* 

*  Two  years  later  the  indefatiga- 

f  f  /7j[/0V  /  J^T C&&t{-&/} ~  ble  Claude  Allouez  was  sent  to 
^-*  \_2  Kaskaskia,  as  this  great  town 

was  known  to  the  churchmen.  He  arrived  April  27,  1676,  and  was  immedi- 
ately lodged  in  Marquette's  cabin.  He  worked  hard,  and  on  May  3,  the  feast 
of  the  Invention  of  the  Holy  Cross,  he  erected  in  the  midst  of  the  village  a 
cross  twenty-five  feet  high  ;  but  though  he  baptised  thirty-five  infants  and 
one  adult,  his  mission  at  that  time  has  not  been  counted  a  success.  He  was 
ngain  at  Kaskaskia  in  1678,  remaining  until  1679,  when  he  retired  before  the 
approach  of  La  Salle. 

Though  La  Salle  had  an  aversion  to  the  Jesuits  in  general,  who,  he  al- 
ways believed,  and  with  pome  reason,  were  his  enemies,  and  a  dislike  to 
Allouez  in  particular,  he  was  still  a  profoundly  religious  man,  and  was  inva- 
riably accompanied  in  his  expeditions  by  the  "  Black  Gowns,"  notably  the 
Recollet  fathers  Gabriel  de  la  Ribourde,  Zenobius  Membre  and  Louis  Hen- 
nepin  In  the  year  1680  the  two  former  took  up  the  work  abandoned  by 
Allouez,  and  were  with  Tonty  on  the  memorable  day  described  on  pages  26 
and  27.  After  their  escape  from  the  Iroquois,  Tonty  and  his  Frenchmen  and 
the  two  Fathers  embarked,  September  18,  for  Green  Bay.  On  the  next 
day,  when  the  men  were  repairing  their  injured  canoe,  the  aged  Fathej£ Ri- 
bourde retired  apart  to  say  his  breviary.  While  thus  engaged,  he  was  met 
by  a  party  of  Kickapoos,  out  against  the  Iroquois,  who  ruthlessly  murdered 
him.f  Thus,  in  his  seventieth  year,  and  in  the  fortieth  of  his  priesthood, 
perished  this  last  scion  of  a  noble  Burgundian  house,  who  had  renounced  the 
world  and  its  honors  and  the  comforts  of  Europe  for  the  wilds  of  Canada 
and  a  martyr's  death. 


*SHBA  :  ''Catholic  Missions  among  the  Indian  Tribes  of  the  United  States." 
tSHEA  :  Ibid. 


STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


In  1680  Allouez  returned  to  the  mission,  remaining  there  until  Cavelier, 
Joutel,  Father  Douay  and  the  other  survivors  of  La  Salle's  ill-fated  colony 
arrived  from  Texas,  As  these  men  falsely  said  that  La  Salle  was  still  alive 
and  on  his  way  to  the  Rock,  Allouez  again  retired.  Little  is  known  of  him 
after  this  time,  except  that  he  died  at  La  Salle's  Fort  Miamis  in  1690,  leav- 
ing a  name  imperishably  connected  with  the  discovery  of  the  Great  West. 
The  year  Allouez  left  Kaskaskia,  Father  James  Gravier  visited  Illinois, 
but  at  that  time  his  mission  did  not  become  a  permanent  one  ;  and  the  real 
successor  of  Allouez  was  the  famous  Sebastian  Rale,  who  was  sent  thither 
from  Quebec,  arriving  in  the  spring  of  1682.  He  found  a  town  of  three 

hundred  cabins,  of  four  to  five  fires  each,  two 
families  to  a  fire;  and  a  banquet  in  his  hon- 
or was  given  by  the  head  chief.  Yet,  though 
he  was  heartily  welcomed,  the  faith  he 
preached  made  but  slow  progress.  After  a 
two  years' stay  with  the  Illinois,  Father  Rale 
was  recalled  to  his  original  charge,  the  Abe- 
nakis  on  the  Kennebec  river  in  Maine  * 

Father  Gravier  came  a  second  time  to 
the  Kaskaskia  mission  in  March,  1694,  and 
built  a  chapel  within  the  fort  on  Starved 
Rock,  by  Tonty's  permission.  He  also  built 
a  second  chapel  outside  the  fort  among  the 
Indians,  and  "planted  before  it  a  towering 
cross  amid  the  shouts  and  musketry  of  the 
French."  He  remained  in  general  -charge 
of  the  mission  until  1697,  when  he  was  re- 
called to  Mackinac.  He  was  succeeded 
by  Fathers  Julius  Binneteau  and  James 
Pinet. 


Widow's  Run  Canyon. 


*His  career  there  is  intensely  interesting;  anrl 
will  be  found  in  detail  in  Francis  Park  man's  "  A 
Half  Century  of  Conflict"  Vol.  1. 


THE  IMMACULATE  CONCEPTION.  43 

Father  Gravier's  mission  seems  to  have  been  the  most  successful  of  all, 
in  which  work  he  was  not  a  little  assisted  by  Mary,  daughter  of  the  chief 
and  wife  of  Michael  Ako  (or  d'Acau.)  Ako  was  probably  one  of  Hennepin's 
companions  in  his  voyage  up  the  Mississippi,  who  on  his  return  to  the  Illi- 
nois wished  to  marry  the  Indian  maiden  against  her  will  but  with  the  consent 
of  her  father.  Father  Gravier  sided  with  the  maiden,  who  at  length  yielded 
to  her  parent's  wish  in  the  hope  that  she  might,  by  this  self-sacrifice,  be  the 
means  of  bi  inging  both  Ako  and  her  parents  into  the  fold  of  Christ.  Ultimate- 
ly her  wish  we  are  told  by  Dr.  Shea,  in  a  sympathetic  chapter,  was  fully 
gratified,  she  having  been  the  means  of  bringing  many  souls  to  the  church. 
Father  Gravier  was  the  first  to  analyze  the  Illinois  language  and  compile 
its  grammar  and  its  dictionary,  but  none  of  his  works  are  said  now  to  exist 
except  in  bare  fragments. 

In  1698  came  Father  Marest,  under  whose  guidance  and  direction  the 
mission  was  removed  to  the  new  Kaskaskia  (the  Kaskaskia  of  our  time — the 
first  capital  of  the  state  of  Illinois),  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi.  This 
migration  of  missionaries  and  Indians,  which  took  place  in  the  year  1699, 
was  the  natural  result  of  the  decay  of  the  Rock's  importance  as  a  military 
and  commercial  point,  and  of  a  desire  for  consolidation  by  the  western,  or 
Illinois,  tribes  against  the  Iroquois  and  those  firebrands  of  the  west,  the 
Foxes. 


[NOTE.— Those  who  are  interested  in  th  >  anitlso"  the  in'ssions  may  consult  Wal- 
lace and  Shea,  supva;  also  John  Kip's  '''Jesuit  Mis.-siorm''"  and  "  Illinois  in  the  Eigh- 
tsenth  Century"  (B'ergus  Historical  Series),  b>  H«-n  E.  G.  Mason.] 


£*? 


THE  DRAMA  OE  THE  EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

God  said,  I  am  tired  of  kings, 
I  suffer  them  no  more; 

*  *  *  * 

My  angel, — his  name  is  Freedom, — 
Choose  him  to  be  your  King; 
He  shall  cut  pathways  east  and  wt-st, 
And  fend  you  with  his  wing. 

— Emerson. 

THE  SCENERY  OF  TRAGEDY. 

^  TARVED  ROCK  played  its  humble  role -or,  rather,  was  a  part  of  the 
«. — 3  mise  en  scene  of  the  momentous  drama  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when 
the  great  struggle  took  place  between  freedom  and  absolutism  for  the  pos- 
session of  the  fairest  and  greatest  part  of  the  North  American  continent 
When  the  century  opened,  the  French  empire  in  America  was  at  the  flood 
tide  of  its  prosperity.  The  triple  alliance  of  priest,  soldier  and  trader  had 
with  unerring  instinct  and  judgment  taken  possession  of  every  route  to  the 
interior  of  the  continent,  and  had  so  united  the  native  tribes  in  the  French 
interest  that  Canada  and  her  western  frontier  were  deemed  so  secure  that, 
as  we  have  seen,  most  of  the  distant  garrisons  were  withdrawn  as  unneces- 
sary to  the  preservation  of  colonial  autonomy.  In  the  far  South,  though  La 
Salle's  schemes  had  come  to  naught,  they  had  been  revived  seven  years  after 
his  death  by  Tonty,  who  had  successfully  "urged  the  seizure  of  Louisiana 
for  three  reasons:  firstly,  as  a  base  of  attack  upon  Mexico;  secondly,  as  a 
depot  for  the  furs  and  lead  ores  of  the  interior;  and  thirdly,  as  the  only 
means  of  preventing  the  English  from  becoming  masters  of  the  west."* 


*PARKMAN  :  "A  Half  Century  of  Conflict." 


THE  SCENERY  OF  TRAGEDY.  45 


More  successful  than  La  Salle,  D'Iberville,  though  he  built  his  fort  at 
Biloxi  [state  of  Mississippi]  and  not  on  the  river,  had  actually  taken  possession 
of  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  thus  outwitting  the  English,  who  were  in  fact 
on  the  point  of  seizing  the  river,  and  retarding  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years  the  development  of  Louisiana  on  lines  of  English  freedom.  New 
France  had,  therefore,  two  heads:  one  looking  to  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence, 
the  other  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico;  and  if  the  northern  wing  of  the  empire  hnd 
its  hardly  concealed  jealousy  of  the  southern  end,  it  nevertheless  appreciated 
the  value  of  the  latter  as  an  aid  to  stem  the  incoming  tide  of  English  influ- 
ence in  the  north. 

One  strategic  mistake  only  had  the  builders  of  the  Franco-American 
empire  made,  but  it  was  vital — irremediable:  they  had  neglected  the  Mohawk 
and  Hudson  rivers  of  New  York,  which  were  occupied  by  the  Dutch,  who 
were  even  shrewder  traders  than  the  French  and  more  far-seeing  Up  to 
about  this  time,  too,  the  English  had  been  content  to  occupy  as  agricultur- 
ists a  narrow  strip  along  the  Atlantic  coast,  where  they  busied  themselves, 
and,  fortunately  for  future  generations,  worried  themselves,  too,  and  their 
governors,  with  questions  of  political  and  religious  rights  and  privileges, 
rather  than  with  what  the  continent  contained  behind  the  Appalachian  wall 
which  few  of  them  cared  to  penetrate  or  to  cross.  The  Hudson  and  the  Mo- 
hawk rivers  however  pierced  that  wall;  and  when  now  the  Dutch  possessions 
in  New  York  came  into  the  hands  of  the  English,  the  character  of  the  Al- 
bany colony  did  not  wholly  change,  but  the  Englishman  began  to  appreci- 
ate the  possibilities  of  the  vast  interior  for  trade;  for  he  even  then  was  a 
more  successful  trader  than  even  the  Dutchman. 

For  twenty  five  years  the  English  traders  had  been  established  on  Hud- 
son's Bay,  diverting  the  northern  trade  of  New  France  from  the  St.  Law- 
rence. If  now  the  English  should  also  get  a  foot-hold  on  the  Great  Lakes  and 
in  the  famous  beaver  country  of  the  present  Michigan  peninsula,  the  northern 
wing  of  New  France  would  be  hemmed  within  very  narrow  limits  indeed, 
and  her  trade  ruined  by  the  cheaper  and  better  goods  of  the  Yankees. 

The  cession  to  the  English  by  the  Iroquois  in  170:  of  all  their  claims  to 


STARVED  ROCK  I  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


the  country  formerly  occupied  by  the  Hurons  precipitated  the  struggle 
which  the  shrewd  Count  Frontenac  had  long  foreseen,  but  which  the  politi- 
co-clerical influence  with  his  successors  and  the  proverbial  corruption  of 
the  court  at  Quebec  had  left  the  colony  more  or  less  unprepared  to  meet. 
These  Iroquois  lands  were  bounded  by  the  Lakes  Ontario,  Huron  and  Erie, 
"containing  in  length  about  800  miles  and  in  breadth  400  miles,  including 
the  country  where  beavers  and  all  sorts  of  wild  game  keep."*  They 
pierced  the  very  heart  of  New  France. 

The  problem,  then,  that  confronted  the  French  authorities  at  Quebec 
was  how  to  stem  this  unpropitious  tide.  The  building  of  a  Fort  at  Detroit 
by  La  Mothe  Cadillac  was  the  first  step  in  opposition.  Another  step  in  the 
same  direction  brings  us  back  again  to  Starved  Rock  and  the  Illinois. 


:  "  The  Old  Northwest," 


STARVED  ROCK  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

Freedom  all  winged  expands, 

Nor  perches  in  a  narrow  place; 

Her  broad  van  seeks  unplanted  lands. 

— Emerson. 

THE  INDIAN  SIEGES. 

HEREVER  the  French  came  in  contact  with  them,  their  rela- 
tions to  the  Indians  were  for  the  most  part  singularly  felicitous. 
This  fact  may  find  explanation,  aside  from  the  natural  adapta- 
bility of  the  French,  in  the  circumstance  that  they  made  no  effort 
to  dispossess  the  Indians  of  their  lands  or  hunting  grounds.  It  was,  at  least 
tacitly,  agreed  that  the  savages  should  be  left  in  undisturbed  possession  of 
the  whole  of  the  vast  domain  of  the  West  on  condition  that  they  allowed  the 
French  to  control  or  monopolize  its  trade.*  Besides,  the  conreurs  des  bois, 
who  made  New  France  and  built  the  chain  of  forts  which  bound  the  West 
to  Canada,  though  proud  of  their  French  blood  and  language,  were  in  the 
bush  quite  as  much  Indian  as  French,  and  thus  they  had  immense  influence 
over  them.  Above  all,  the  conreurs  hated  the  English;  and  being  the 
shrewdest  of  diplomats  they  won  over  the  Indians  to  themselves,  and  both  pa- 
trolled the  forests  and  lakes  as  against  the  venturesome  Englishmen.  Even 
the  Iroquois  had  become  neutral  for  the  time,  and  the  destiny  of  America 
seemed  already  decided;  for  "  the  lilies  of  France  floated  without  opposition 
over  the  entire  expanse  from  Quebec  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
from  the  Alleghenies  to  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains."  f 


*HEBBEED  :  "  Wisconsin  under  the  Dominion  of  France." 

tHEBBEKD  :  Ibid. 


48  STARVED    ROCK  :    A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

But  thi  curse  of  Canada  was  the  monopoly  held  by  the  one  trading  com- 
pany which  had  legal  control  of  all  the  commerce  of  the  colony,  and  whose 
goods  were  not  only  poorer  but  were  extortionately  high  as  compared  with 
those  of  the  English.  The  Indians  were  not  slow  to  discover  this  difference, 
and  they  began  to  chafe  under  the  French  trading  yoke.  This  was  especi- 
ally true  of  the  Foxes  of  Wisconsin,  a  nation  whose  renown  for  bravery,  in- 
dependence, intractability  and  endurance  was  then  second  to  that  of  no 
tribe  of  the  West.  The  behavior  of  the  Foxes  so  exasperated  the  French 
authorities  that  it  was  understood  (at  least  among  the  Indian  allies  of  the 
French)  that  the  governor  desired  the  utter  extermination  of  the  Fox  nation.* 
The  massacre  of  a  large  part  of  them  at  Detroit  in  1712  may  or  may  not  have 
been  deliberately  planned  by  the  French;  but  it  seems  to  have  been  so  under- 
stood by  the  allies,  who,  after  the  siege  was,  over  wherein  several  hundred 
Foxes  were  butchered,  set  out  for  Quebec  to  claim  the  reward  which  they 
insisted  the  governor  had  promised  for  the  Foxes'  destruction.! 

The  tragedy  at  Detroit,^:  though  it  crippled  the  Fox  nation,  did  not  de- 
stroy it,  nor  break  the  spirit  of  these  indomitable  savages;  it  only  deepened 
their  dislike  of  the  French  into  a  grim  and  undying  hatred.  After  a  short 
truce,  during  which  they  made  an  alliance  with  the  Sioux,  the  Foxes,  in 
small  war  parties,  began  to  harrass  the  Illinois,  so  that  by  1714  the  latter 
were  practically  driven  away  from  their  old  homes  on  the  Illinois  never  to 
return,  having  settled  under  the  protecting  arms  of  the  French  at  Kaskaskia 
nnd  Fort  Chartres  on  the  Mississippi.  Indeed,  the  Foxes  by  their  settle- 
ment on  Fox  river  of  Wisconsin  and  their  destruction  of  the  Illinois,  had  be- 
come virtual  masters  of  both  lines  of  travel  between  the  east  and  the  west, 
and  communication  between  France  and  Louisiana  became  extremely  difficult 
and  dangerous.  In  fact,  they  had  almost  split  the  empire  of  New  France 
asunder. 

The  situation  had  become  desperate,  therefore;  and  in  1716  De  Lou- 
vingy  was  sent  with  eight  hundred  French  and  Indian  allies  to  crush  the 


*HEBBERD:  '"  Wisconsin,'''  etc. 

tPABKMAN  :  "  Half  Century  of  Conflict."       %Ibid. 


THE  INDIAN  SIEGES. 


Foxes  at  their  Wisconsin  village.  The  latter  were  again  badly  punished, 
and  gave  hostages  to  preserve  peace;  but  when,  1718,  it  appeared  that  but 
one  of  the  hostages  remained  alive  and  he  had  lost  an  eye,  the  Foxes  again 
became  restless  and  soon  began  anew  to  harrass  the  Illinois  tribes.* 

At  length  the  crisis  came.  The  Illinois  in  1722  captured  the  nephew  of 
Oushala,  the  principal  Fox  war-chief,  and  burned  him  alive;  on  which  the 
Foxes  attacked  them,  drove  them  to  the  top  of  Starved  Rock  for  refuge,  and 
held  them  there  at  mercy.  This  Illinois  tribe  was  the  Peorias,  the  last  of 
the  tribes  to  cling  to  the  famous  stronghold  ofrLa  Salle  at  Starved  Rock,  all 
the  other  tribes  having  fled  to  the  west./  '.'Unluckily  we  know  nothing 
of  the  details  of  the  siege,  except  the  number  of  the  slain:  twenty  Pe- 
orias and  one  hundred  and  twenty  of  the  besiegers,"  says  Hebberd.f 
"But  the  bare  figures  are  eloquent;  they  tell  not  of  a  mere  blockade,  but  of 
fierce  assaults,  storming  parties,  desperate  attempts  to  scale  the  heights — the 
old  story  of  Foxes'  fury  and  reckless  courage." 

News  of  this  attack  on  the  Peorias  having  reached  Fort  Chartres,  a  de- 
tachment of  a  hundred  men,  commanded  by  Chevalier  d'Artaguiette  and 
Sieur  de  Tisne,  was  sent  to  their  assistance.  Before  this  reinforcement 
reached  the  Rock,  however,  the  Foxes  raised  the  siege  and  departed.  The 
Peorias,  nevertheless,  abandoned  their  Illinois  home,  which  they  had  occu- 
pied up  to  this  time,  and  united  with  the  other  tribe  at,  Kaskaskia,  so  that 
after  all  the  Foxes  had  been  successful  and  again  had  control  of  the  very 
heart  of  New  France,  the  Illinois  river.:}:  "It  was  a  grave  disaster  for  the 
French,"  Charlevoix  says;  "for  now  that  there  is  nothing  to  check  the 
raids  of  the  Foxes,  communication  between  .Canada  and  Louisiana  be- 
came less  practicable."^ 

At  Versailles  this  last  offense  of  the  Foxes  seemed  unpardonable,  and 
the  colonial  minister  declared  that  "The  Outagamies  [Foxes]  must  be  effect 


*  PARKMAN  :  "Half  century  of  Conflict.'" 
fHEBBERD  :  ''  Wisconsin  under  the  Dominion  of  France." 
tBECKWiTH:  "The  Illinois  and  Indiana  Indians."  • 

§CHARLEYOIX  :  "History  of  New  France."    A  famous  traveler  of  the  early  18th 
century. 


50  STARVED  ROCK  \  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCtf. 

ually  put  down,  and  that  his  Majesty  will  reward  the  officer  who  will  reduce, 
or  rather  destroy,  them."*  In  1728,  therefore,  Sieur  de  Lignery  went  from 
Quebec  with  five  hundred  French  and  a  thousand  Indians  to  destroy  the 
Foxes.  In  August,  they  burned  the  Indians'  village  in  Wisconsin  and  de- 
stroyed their  crops,  but  the  nimble  Foxes  escaped  him. 

In  1730,  Coulon  de  Villiers,  who  in  1754  defeated  George  Washington  at 
Fort  Necessity,  appeared  at  Quebec  with  the  news  that  his  father,  com- 
mander of  the  old  Fort  Miamis  on  St.  Joseph  river,  had  struck  the  Foxes  a 
severe  blow,  killing  two  hundred  of  their  warriors  and  six  hundred  women 
and  children.  Villiers'  force  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  Frenchmen  had  been 
gathered  from  various  western  posts  and  was  assisted  by  twelve  to  thirteen 
hundred  Indian  allies,  under  Sieurs  de  Saint-Ange,  father  and  son,  from  the 
Illinois  settlements,  and  De  Noyelles,  from  among  the  Miamis  in  Indiana. 

"The  accounts  of  the  affair  are  obscure  and  not  very  trustworthy," 
says  Parkman.f  ''It  seems  that  the  Foxes  began  the  fray  by  an  attack  on 
the  Illinois  at  La  Salle's  old  station  of  La  Rocher  [Starved  Rock],  on  the 
river  Illinois.  On  hearing  of  this  the  French  commanders  mustered  their 
Indian  allies,  hastened  to  the  spot,  and  found  the  Foxes  intrenched  in  a  grove 
which  they  had  surrounded  with  a  stockade." 

"The  battle  began  on  the  igth  of  August,  1730,  and  lasted  twenty-two 
days,"  says  Hebberd,|  who  bases  his  account  upon  the  narrative  of  Ferland.^ 
"  The  Foxes  had  chosen  an  admirable  position  in  a  piece  of  woods  upon  a 
gentle  slope  by  the  side  of  a  small  river.  Although  outnumbered  four  to  one, 
they  fought  with  their  usual  dash  and  valor,  making  many  desperate  sorties, 
but  were  each  time  driven  back  by  the  overwhelming  numbers  of  the  enemy. 
The  French,  on  their  part,  dug  trenches  and  proceeded  with  all  the  caution 
they  had  been  taught  by  many  campaigns  against  these  redoubtable  foes. 

"  After  a  while  the  supply  of  food  gave  out,  and  famine  reigned  in  both 
camps.  The  Foxes  and  the  French  suffered  alike  under  the  calm,  cruel  im- 


*HARKMAN  :  '  Half  Century  of  Conflict" 

fPAKKMAN  :  Ibid. 

^HEBBBRD:  "  Wisconsin,"  etc. 

•jFERLAND  :  ''Cours  (THistoire  du  Canada." 


THE  INDIAN  SIEGES.  5! 


partiality  of  nature.  Two  hundred  Illinois  Indians  deserted.  But  the  French 
persevered,  and  began  the  construction  of  a  fort  to  prevent  the  besieged 
from  going  to  the  river  for  water.  Further  resistance  now  seemed  impossi- 
ble. But  on  the  8th  of  September  a  violent  storm  arose,  accompanied  by 
heavy  thunder  and  torrents  of  rain.  The  following  night  was  rainy,  dark 
and  cold  ;  and  under  its  cover  the  Foxes  stole  away  from  their  fort.  Before 
they  had  gone  far  the  crying  of  their  children  betrayed  them  But  the  French 
did  not  dare  to  attack  them  amidst  a  darkness  so  dense  that  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  distinguish  friend  from  foe.  In  the  morning,  however,  they  set  out  in 
hot  pursuit." 

The  pursuit  became  a  mere  massacre  (the  Foxes  being  then  without 
ammunition),  from  which  only  fifty  or  sixty  of  the  Foxes  escaped.  Many  of 
them  were  burned  at  the  stake.  And  the  Canadian  governor's  report  to  Paris 
closes  with  the  cheering  news  :  "Behold  a  nation  humiliated  in  such  a  fash- 
ion that  they  will  nevermore  trouble  the  earth." 

In  truth  "  the  offending  tribe  must  now,  one  would  think,  have  ceased 
to  be  dangerous,"  but  nothing  less  than  its  total  destruction  would  content 
the  French.*  The  French,  however,  never  afterwards  sent  an  expedition 
against  the  Foxes,  but  turned  them  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  their  allies, 
especially  the  Hurons,  their  deadly  enemies.  But  even  they  failed  to  anni- 
hilate these  splendid  savages,  the  remnant  of  whom  allied  themselves  with 
the  Sauks,  a  tribe  who,  as  the  Sauks  and  Foxes,  were  a  continued  menace 
to  the  frontier,  and,  in  1832,  rose  in  open  war  with  the  United  States  au- 
thorities under  their  famous  chief  Black  Hawk. 

Though  they  met  the  fate  of  all  their  race,  nevertheless  the  Foxes  un- 
consciously, as  has  been  seen,  played  an  important  part  in  shaping  the  des- 
tiny of  the  continent ;  for  it  was  no  slight  service  to  liberty  as  opposed  to 
absolutism  that  they  closed  the  gateway  between  Canada  and  Louisiana  and 
for  thirty  years  virtually  kept  it  closed,  thus  preventing  the  consolidation 
of  New  France  and  paving  the  way  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  conquest  and  occu- 
pation when  the  time  was  ripe  for  that  happy  event. 


*PABKMAN  :  '"Half  Century  of  Conflict." 


STARVED  ROCK  :    A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


Starved  Rock,  then,  as  the  spot  where  took  place  the  most  important 
of  those  struggles  between  the  French  and  their  unconquerable  savage  foes, 
thus  became  a  by  no  means  insignificant  part  of  the  scenery  of  that  greater 
contest  of  races  and  ideas  which  ultimately  closed  by  "handing  the  conti- 
nent over  to  its  rightful  inheritors,  the  freemen  of  America." 


ROBERT  CAVELIER  SIEUR  DE  LA  SALLE. 

[Louis  Hennepin's  "  Nouvelle  Decouverte,"  London  Edition 

of  1^88.     The  picture  is  interesting,  but  as  a  portrait 

it  has  absolutely  no  value.] 


STARVED    ROCK,   FROM    THE    EAST. 


IHfcllBKARY 

Of"  1H£ 
UNIVERSITY  Of  ILLINOIS 


THE  LAST  OP  THE  ILLINOIS. 

Under  the  hollow  sky, 
Stretched  on  the  prairie  lone, 

Center  of  glory,  I, 
Bleeding,  disdain  to  groan, 

But  like  a  battle-cry 
Peal  forth  my  thunder  moan. 

Bairn — wah  — wah  ! 


Hark  to  those  spirit  notes  ! 
Ye  high  heroes  divine, 

Hymned  from  your  god-like  throats 
That  song  of  praise  is  mine  ! 

Mine,  whose  grave-pennon  floats 
O'er  the  foeman's  line. 

Bairn — wah  —  wah  ! 

— Death  Song.* 

•:'; 
THE    FINAL    TRAGEDY. 

IT  is  generally  believed  that  the  tragedy  which  gave 
Starved  Rock  its  suggestive  name  was  a  part  of  the 
aftermath  of  the  wars  of  the  conspiracy  of  Pontiac  ; 
yet  really  authentic  accounts  of  this  occurrence  are 
so  few  and  of  so  uncertain  authority  that  Beckwithf 
insists  there  is  really  no  authority  at  all  to  support  it, 
other  than  the  "vague,  though  charming,  traditions 
drawn  from  the  wonder  stories  of  many  tribes."    Yet 
JUDGE   CATON.  no  reader  of  this  sketch  will,  I  hope,  be  willing,  how- 

ever meagre  our  authority,  to  surrender,  at  Mr.  Beckwith's  dictum,  so  pa- 


*  DEATH  SONG  :   "4  be  tuh  ge  zhig."    Algonquin  by  bchoolcraft ;  English  by  C.  F. 
Hoffman. 

tBEOKWiTH  :  "Illinois  and  Indiana  Indians." 


54  STARVED  ROCK  :    A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

thetic  and  picturesque  a  tale,  hallowed  as  it  is  by  the  faith  in  its  truth  of  our 
pioneer  predecessors,  who  have  woven  the  tale  into  the  very  fabric  of  local 
historical  tradition.  There  is  nothing  in  the  least  improbable  in  the  legend  ; 
rather,  there  is  much  to  support  the  affirmations  of  Indian,  French  and  Amer- 
ican traditions,  that  the  tragedy  of  the  obliteration  by  starvation  here  of  a 
race  of  dusky  warriors  did  actually  take  place  as  residents  of  the  Illinois 
valley  have  been  led  to  believe  for  at  least  seventy-five  years. 

It  is  not  proposed  to  dwell  on  the  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac.  The  stu- 
dent and  the  reader  of  romances  alike  will  find  the  record  in  Parkman's  vol 
umes  bearing  that  title:  a  broad  historic  projection  for  the  student;  history 
as  charmingly  told  as  romance  for  the  general  reader.  Suffice  it  here  to  say, 
that  a  few  days  before  his  death,  in  1769,  Pontiac  made  his  old  friend,  Pierre 
Chouteau,  the  trader,  a  visit  at  St.  Louis ;  and  while  there  heard  of  an  Ind- 
ian drinking  bout  or  other  festivities  about  to  be  held  at  Cahokia.  Thither 
Pontiac  went,  in  April,  1769,  and  while  drunk,  was,  at  the  instigation  of  an 
Englishman,  murdered,  for  the  bribe  of  a  barrel  of  whisky,  by  a  Kaskaskia 
Indian. 

The  murder  set  the  whole  Illinois  country  aflame.  "The  news  spread 
like  lightning  through  the  country,"  says  one  account,  quoted  by  Parkman.* 
"The  Indians  assembled  in  great  numbers,  attacked  and  destroyed  all  the 
Peorias,  except  about  thirty  families,  which  were  received  into  fortChartres." 
All  the  authorities  agree  that  the  murder  "  brought  on  successive  wars,  and 
the  almost  total  extermination  of  the  Illinois."  Parkman's  own  text  says  : 
"Could  Pontiac's  shade  have  revisited  the  scene  of  his  murder,  his  savage 
spirit  would  have  exulted  in  the  vengeance  which  overwhelmed  the  abettors 
of  the  crime.  Whole  tribes  were  rooted  out  to  expiate  it.  Chiefs  and  sa- 
chems, whose  veins  had  thrilled  with  his  eloquence ;  young  warriors,  whose 
aspiring  hearts  had  caught  the  inspiration  of  his  greatness,  mustered  to  re- 
venge his  fate ;  and  from  the  north  and  the  east,  their  united  bands  descend- 
ed on  the  villages  of  the  Illinois.  Tradition  has  but  faintly  preserved  the 
memory  of  the  event ;  and  its  only  annalists,  men  who  held  the  intestine 


*PABKMAN  :  "Conspiracy  of  Pontiac"  Vol.  II.  p.  313- note 


\ 


THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY. 


55 


feuds  of  the  savage  tribes  in  no  more  account  than  the  quarrels  of  panthers 
or  wildcats,  have  left  but  a  meagre  record.  Yet  enough  remains  to  tell  us 
that  over  the  grave  of  Pontiac  more  blood  was  poured  out  in  atonement  than 
fLwed  from  the  veins  of  the  slaughtered  heroes  on  the  corpse  of  Patroclus; 
and  the  remnant  of  the  Illinois  who  survived  the  carnage  remained  forever 
after  sunk  in  u  ter  insignificance." 

The  specific  incident  with  which  the  nam  :  of  Starved  Rock  is  indisso- 
lubly  linked  is  nowhere  mentioned  by  the  trav^le  s'  tales  or  military  reports 
of  the  time,  nor  are  the  Pottawatomie  Indians  named  in  connection  with  the 
revenge  wreaked  by  Pontiac's  Indian  friends  Nevertheless,  the  Pottawato- 
mie Indians,  who  had  by  this  time  come  into  possession  of  most  of  the  lands 
in  Illinois  formerly  held  by  the  tribes  who  are  named  as  a  whole  as  the  Illi- 
nois, were  on  the  ground  at  this  time,  and  without  doubt  took  their  partjn 
the  general  fighting. 

The  "wonder  story"  which  Mr.  Beckwith  cites  as  the  most  interesting 
of  those  preserving  this  tradition  is  that  published  by  the  late  Judge  Caton, 
in  a  pamphlet.entitled,  "The  Last  of  the  Illinois,  and  a  Sketch  of  the  Potta- 
watomies  "  The  Judge  in  this  sketch  says  that  the  wars  against  the  Illinois 
tribes  had  so  reduced  them  in  numbers  that  now,  in  their  direst  extremity, 
driven  hither  as  a  last  refuge,  "  they  found  sufficient  space  upon  the  half  acre 
of  ground  which  covers  the  summit  of  Starved  Rock.  As  its  sides  are  per- 
pendicular, ten  men  could  repel  ten  thousand  with  the  means  of  warfare  then 
at  their  command.  The  allies  made  no  attempt  to  take  the  fort  on  the  Rock 
by  storm,  but  closely  besieged  it  on  every  side  On  the  north,  or  river,  side 
the  upper  rock  overhangs  the  water  somewhat,  and  tradition  tells  us  how 
the  confederates  placed  themselves  in  canoes  under  the  shelving  rock  and 
cut  the  thongs  of  the  besieged  when  they  lowered  their  vessels  to  obtain 
water  from  the  river,  and  so  reduced  them  by  thirst ;  but  Meachelle,*  as  far 
I  know,  never  mentioned  this  as  one  of  the  means  resorted  to  by  the  confed- 
erates to  reduce  their  enemies,  nor,  from  an  examination  of  the  ground,  do 


*  Meachelle  was  a  Pottawatomie  chief  who  told  the  story  to  Judge  Caton,  Meachelle 
being  a  boy  at  the  time  of  the  siege. 


56  STARVED    ROCK  :    A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

I  think  this  probable;  but  they  depended  upon  a  lack  of  provisions,  which 
we  can  readily  appreciate  must  soon  occur  to  a  savage  people  who  rarely  an- 
ticipate the  future  in  storing  up  supplies.  How  long  the  besieged  held  out 
Meachelle  did  not,  and  probably  could  not,  tell  us;  but  at  last  the  time  came 
when  the  unfortunate  remnant  could  hold  out  no  longer.  They  awaited  but 
a  favorable  opportunity  to  attempt  their  escape.  This  was  at  last  afforded 
by  a  dark  and  stormy  night,  when,  led  by  their  few  remaining  warriors,  all 
stole  in  profound  silence  down  the  steep  and  narrow  declivity  to  be  met  by 
a  solid  wall  of  their  enemies  surrounding  the  point  where  alone  a  sortie 
could  be  made,  and  which  had  been  confidently  expected.  The  horrid  scene 
that  ensued  can  be  better  imagined  than  described.  No  quarter  was  asked 
or  given.  For  a  time  the  bowlings  of  the  tempest  were  drowned  by  the  yells 
of  the  combatants  and  the  shrieks  of  the  victims. 

"Desperation  lends  strength  to  even  enfeebled  arms,  but  no  efforts  of 
valor  could  resist  the  overwhelming  numbers  actuated  by  the  direst  hate. 
The  braves  fell  one  by  one,  fighting  like  very  fiends,  and  terribly  did  they 
revenge  themselves  upon  their  enemies.  The  few  women  and  children, 
whom  famine  had  left  but  enfeebled  skeletons,  fell  easy  victims  to  the  war- 
clubs  of  the  terrible  savages,  who  deemed  it  as  much  a  duty,  and  almost  as 
great  a  glory,  to  slaughter  the  emaciated  women  and  the  helpless  children  as 
to  strike  down  the  men  who  were  able  to  make  resistance  with  arms  in  their 
'Hands.  They  were  bent  upon  the  utter  extermination  of  their  hated  enemies, 
and  most  successfully  did  they  bend  their  savage  energies  to  the  bloody  task. 

"Soon  the  victims  were  stretched  upon  the  sloping  ground  south  and 
west  of  the  impregnable  Rock,  their  bodies  lying  stark  upon  the  sand  which 
had  been  thrown  up  by  the  prairie  winds.  The  wails  of  the  feeble  and  the 
strong  had  ceased  to  fret  the  night  winds,  whose  mournful  sighs  through  the 
neighboring  pines  sounded  like  a  requiem.  Here  was  enacted  the  fitting 
finale  to  that  work  of  death  which  had  been  commenced,  scarcely  a  mile 
away,  a  century  before  by  the  still  more  savage  and  terrible  Iroquois 

"  Still,  all  were  not  destroyed.  Eleven  of  the  most  athletic  warriors,  in 
the  darkness  and  confusion  of  the  fight,  broke  through  the  besieging  lines. 


-" 


THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY.  57 

They  had  marked  well  from  their  high  perch  on  the  isolated  Rock,  the  little 
nook  below,  where  their  enemies  had  moored  at  least  a  part  of  their  canoes, 
and  to  these  they  rushed  with  headlong  speed,  unnoticed  by  their  foes.  In 
to  these  they  threw  themselves,  and  hurried  down  the  rapids  below.  They 
had  been  trained  to  the  use  of  the  paddle  and  the  canoe,  and  knew  well 
every  intricacy  of  the  channel,  so  that  they  could  safely  thread  it,  even  in 
the  dark  and  boisterous  night.  They  knew  their  deadly  enemies  would  soon  be 
in  their  wake,  and  that  there  was  no  safe  refuge  for  them  short  of  St.  Louis. 
They  had  no  provisions  to  sustain  their  waning  strength,  and  yet  it  was  cer- 
tain death  to  stop  by  the  way.  Their  only  hope  was  in  pressing  forward 
by  night  and  by  day,  without  a  moment's  pause,  scarcely  looking  back,  yet 
ever  fearing  that  their  pursuers  would  make  their  appearance  around  the 
point  they  had  last  left  behind.  It  was  truly  a  race  for  life.  If  they  could 
reach  St.  Louis,  they  were  safe;  if  overtaken,  there  was  no  hope.  We  must 
leave  to  the  imagination  the  details  of  a  race  where  the  stake  was  so  momentous 
to  the  contestants.  As  life  is  sweeter  even  than  revenge,  we  may  safely  as- 
sume that  the  pursued  were  impelled  to  even  greater  exertions  than  the  pur- 
suers. Those  who  ran  for  life  won  the  race.  They  reached  St.  Louis  be- 
fore their  enemies  came  in  sight,  and  told  their  appalling  tale  to  the  com- 
mandant of  the  fort,  from  whom  they  received  assurances  of  protection,  and 
were  generously  supplied  with  food,  which  their  famished  condition  so 
much  required.  This  had  barely  been  done  when  their  enemies  arrived  and 
fiercely  demanded  their  victims,  that  no  drop  of  blood  of  their  hated  enemies 
might  longer  circulate  in  human  veins.  This  was  refused,  when  they  retired 
with  impotent  threats  of  future  vengeance,  which  they  never  had  the  means 
of  executing. 

"After  their  enemies  had  gone,  the  Illinois,  who  never  after  even 
claimed  that  name,  thanked  their  entertainers,  and,  full  of  sorrow  which  no 
words  can  express,  slowly  paddled  their  way  across  the  river,  to  seek  new 
friends  among  the  tribes  who  then  occupied  the  southern  part  of  this  state, 
and  who  would  listen  with  sympathy  to  the  sad  tale  they  had  to  relate. 
They  alone  remained  the  broken  remnant  and  last  representatives  of  their 
once  great  nation.  Their  name,  even  now,  must  be  blotted  out  from  among 


58  STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


the  names  of  the  aboriginal  tribes.  Henceforth  they  must  cease  to  be  of  the 
present,  and  could  only  be  remembered  as  a  part  o*f  the  past.  This  is  the 
last  we  know  of  the  last  of  the  Illinois.  They  were  once  a  great  and  pros- 
perous people,  as  advanced  and  as  humane  as  any  of  the  aborigines  around 
them;  we  do  not  know  that  a  drop  of  their  blood  now  animates  a  human 
being,  but  their  name  is  perpetuated  in  this  great  state,  of  whose  record  of 
the  past  all  of  us  feel  so  proud,  and  of  whose  future  the  hopes  of  us  all  are 
so  sanguine. 

"Till  the  morning  light  revealed  that  the  canoes  were  gone  the  confed- 
erates believed  that  their  sanguinary  work  had  been  so  thoroughly  done  that 
not  a  living  soul  remained.  So  soon  as  the  escape  was  discovered,  the  pur- 
suit was  commenced,  but  as  we  have  seen,  without  success.  The  pursuers 
returned  disappointed  and  dejected  that  their  enemies'  scalps  were  not  hang- 
ing from  their  belts.  But  surely  blood  enough  had  been  spilled  —vengeance 
should  have  been  more  than  satisfied. 

"I  have  failed,  no  doubt,  to  properly  render  Meachelle's  account  of  this 
sad  drama,  for  I  have  been  obliged  to  use  my  own  language,  without  the  in- 
spiration awakened  in  him  by  the  memory  of  the  scene  which  served  as  his 
first  baptism  in  blood.  Who  can  wonder  that  it  made  a  lasting  impression 
on  his  youthful  mind?  Still,  he  was  not  fond  of  relating  it,  nor  would  he 
speak  of  it  except  to  those  who  had  acquired  his  confidence  and  intimacy. 
It  is  probably  the  only  account  to  be  had  related  by  an  eye-witness,  and  we 
may  presume  that  it  is  the  most  authentic." 

While  the  writer  must  confess  that  the  learned  and  venerable  jurist's 
version  of  the  Starved  Rock  tradition  is  open  to  the  criticism  that  some  of 
its  details  seem  improbable,  nevertheless  of  the  substantial  truth  of  the 
legend,  we  believe  there  can  be  but  little  doubt.  Even  man's  wonder  stories 
have  always  something  of  fact,  of  human  experience,  or  of  physical  pheno- 
mena behind  them,  as  one  might  reply  to  Mr.  Beckwith's  skepticism.  But 
the  story  of  Starved  Rock,  as  told  by  Judge  Caton,  has  been  corroborated  by 
other  competent  searchers  for  truth,  especially  by  Hon.  Perry  A.  Arm- 
strong, of  Morris,  one  of  the  pioneers  of  Illinois,  who  knew  personally 
many  of  the  famous  Indians  of  this  part  of  the  state  who  died  subsequently 


THE  FINAL  TRAGEDY.  5Q 


to  the  coming  of  the  permanent  American  settlers.  Among  these  was  an  old 
chief  named  Shick  Shack*  claiming  to  be  104  years  of  age,  who,  as  Mr.  Arm- 
strong said,  in  an  address*  at  a  celebration  at  Starved  Rock,  of  the  two-hun- 
dredth anniversary  (September  10,  1873)  of  its  discovery,  told  him  substan- 
tially the  same  story  that  Meachelle  told  Judge  Caton,  which  the  latter  pub- 
lished in  1876.  Shick  Shack  said  he  was  present  at  the  siege,  a  boy  half  grown. 

The  late  N.  Matson.f  of  Princeton,  was  another  student  of  this  legend. 
In  prosecuting  his  historical  researches,  he  spent  much  time  (prior  to  1882) 
with  the  descendants  of  old  French  colonists  who  had  lived  at  Kaskaskia  and 
Cahokia  in  the  last  century.  Mr.  Matson  was  more  than  convinced  of  the 
truth  of  the  legend,  so-called*.  Indeed,  he  goes  so  far  as  to  identify  ' '  the 
only  survivor  of  the  fearful  tragedy."  This  warrior,  Mr.  Matson  tells  us, 
was  a  young  man,  ' '  partly  white,  being  a  descendant  on  his  father's  side  from 
the  French.  Being  alone  in  the  world  after  the  catastrophe,  he  went  to 
Peoria,  joined  the  colony,  and  there  ended  his  days.  He  embraced  Christi- 
anity," Mr.  Matson  continues,  "and  became  an  officer  in  the  church,  assum- 
ing the  name  of  Antonio  La  Bell ;  and  his  descendants  are  now  (1882)  living 
near  Prairie  du  Rocher  [on  the  Mississippi],  one  of  whom,  Charles  La  Bell, 
was  a  party  to  a  suit  in  the  United  States  court  to  recover  the  land  on  which 
Peoria  now  stands." 

Mr.  Matson  further  states  that  Col.  Jos.  N.  Bourassa,  a  descendant  of 
the  Illinois, French,  living  (1882)  in  Kansas,  had  collected  a  large  number 
of  stories  relating  to  the  Starved  Rock  tragedy;  and  himself  had  heard  two 
aged  warriors,  who  participated  in  the  massacre,  narrate  many  incidents 
which  took  place  at  that  time.  Another  old  Indian  named  Mashaw,  once 
well  known  by  early  Ottawa  and  Hennepin  traders,  Mr  Matson  says,  also 
made  various  statements,  through  an  interpreter,  in  relation  to  the  tragedy, 
to  early  American  traders  and  settlers.  Mashaw  said  that  seven  Indians  es- 
caped from  the  Rock  Medore  Jennette,  also,  an  employe  of  the  Chouteaus, 
the  famous  fur  traders  at  St.  Louis,  who  lived  many  years  at  an  Indian  vil- 


*Ottawa  Free  Trader,  September,  1873. 
t  MATSON  :  "Pioneers  of  Illinois."    1882. 


6o  STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

lage  at  the  mouth  of  Fox  river,  has  left  many  traditions  of  this  tragedy  to  his 
descendants,  according  to  Mr.  Matson.  Jennette  came  to  the  country  in 
1772  and  says  he  himself  saw  the  bones  of  the  dead  Illinois  upon  the  Rock. 
An  Indian  named  Shaddy  (or  Shaty)  was  still  another  who  gave  Mr.  Matson 
details  of  this  story,  which  he  had  from  his  father,  who  was  present.  Shad- 
dy (Shaty)  said  only  one  man,  the  half-breed  La  Bell,  escaped.  Two  traders, 
Robert  Maillet  and  Felix  La  Pance,  are  said  to  have  left  the  record  that,  re- 
turning from  Canada  with  goods,  they  saw  the  buzzards  on  Starved  Rock 
cleaning  the  bones  of  the  dead.  Further,  Mr.  Matson  adds  that  Father 
Buche.  a  priest  of  Peoria,  traveling  up  Illinois  river  the  following  spring 
(1770),  ascended  the  Rock  and  there  saw  the  horrid  evidences  of  the  tragedy, 
the  holy  Father's  written  story  of  this  visit  being  in  manuscript  (dated  April, 
1770),  which,  in  1882,  was  in  the  hands  of  one  Hypolite  Pilette,  then  living 
on  the  American  Bottom. 

Not  to  go  further,  it  may  be  said  in  conclusion  that  there  is  nothing  im- 
probable in  the  Starved  Rock  legend.  Speaking  of  the  remorseless  massacre 
of  several  hundred  Foxes  (Outagamies)  at  Detroit,  1712,  by  French  and  Ind- 
ians, Dr.  Parkman*  says  :  "  There  is  a  disposition  to  assume  that  events  like 
that  just  recounted  were  a  consequence  of  the  contact  of  white  men  with  red, 
but  the  primitive  Indian  was  quite  able  to  enact  such  tragedies  without  the 
aid  of  Europeans.  Before  French  or  English  influence  had  been  felt  in  the 
interior  of  the  continent,  a  great  part  of  North  America  was  the  frequent 
witness  of  scenes  more  lurid  in  coloring  and  on  a  larger  scale  of  horror.  In 
the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  whole  country,  from  Lake  Su- 
perior to  the  Tennessee  and  from  the  Alleghenies  to  the  Mississippi,  was  rav- 
aged by  wars  of  extermination,  in  which  tribes,  large  and  powerful,  by  Ind- 
ian standards,  perished,  dwindled  into  feeble  remnants  or  were  absorbed 
by  other  tribes  and  vanished  from  sight."  Extermination  by  red  man's  and 
white  man's  hands  alike  was  the  fate  of  the  Indian;  and  the  Starved  Rock 
tragedy  was  but  an  incident  of  the  resistless  and  remorseless  movement  of 
Indian  destiny. 


*PARKMAN  :  "Half  Century  of  Conflict.'1'' 


CANYON  SOUTH  OF  STARVED  ROCK. 


THE  SEQUEL. 

Far  as  we  are  informed,  so  thick  and  fast  they  fell, 
Scarce  twenty  of  their  number  at  night  did  get  home  well. 

— Puritan  Ballad. 

THE  POTTAWATOMIES- 

THE  Hon.  P.  A.  Armstrong,  of  Morris,  111.,  who  has  written  much  upon 
the  Indian  wars  of  Illinois  during  this  century,  in  1873  published  in 
the  Morris  Reformer  a  series  of  articles  on  the  Starved  Rock  tradition,  based 
upon  personal  interviews  had  sixty  years  ago  with  early  pioneers  of  La  Salle 
and  Grundy  counties,  as  well  as  the  retiring  red  men,  trappers,  traders  and 
other  frontiersmen.  After  sketching  the  war  which  ended  with  the  Rock 
tragedy,  Mr.  Armstrong  brings  the  conquering  tribes  together  the  following 
spring  on  Indian  Creek,  in  La  Salle  county,  north  and  east  of  Ottawa,  where 
they  met  to  have  a  jollification  over  their  victory,  and  then  proceeds  sub 
stantially  as  follows  : 

"On. this  occasion  weeks  were  spent  in  feasting,  dancing  and  merry- 
making,— weeks  fraught  with  the  most  direful  consequences  to  the  peace 
and  harmony  of  the  allies;  for  at  this  feast  each  and  every  warrior  was  al- 
lowed and  expected  to  recite  in  the  most  exaggerated  manner  his  prowess  as 
a  warrior;  the  scalps  he  had  taken,  the  dangers  encountered  and  sufferings 
endured,  commencing  ia  all  instances  with  '  Big  Indian  me."  Jealousies  at 
once  sprung  up  as  each  candidate  applied  for  applause,  the  squaws  and  pap- 
pooses  naturally  siding  with  the  warriors  of  their  respective  tribes,  and  a 
feeling  of  distrust,  if 'not  hate,  was  soon  engendered,  which  daily  increased, 
so  that  when  the  chiefs  came  to  talk  about  the  division  of  the  territory  they 
had  acquired,  each  tribe  claimed  the  lion's  share. 

"Of  the  territory  west  of  the  Illinois  river  they  knew  nothing,  and  they 


62  STARVED'ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

all  desired  that  territory  watered  by  the  Illinois  river  and  its  tributaries. 
An  amicable  division  or  adjustment  could  not  be  made.  The  Miamis  were 
by  far  more  numerous  than  either  of  the  other  tribes,  and  moreover 
were  much  better  armed,  since  they  had  quite  a  number  of  muskets  while 
the  other  tribes  had  none  This  rendered  the  Miamis  very  domineering  and 
haughty.  They  demanded  all  or  nearly  all  of  the  newly  acquired  territory, 
which,  of  course,  the  other  two  tribes  resisted;  hence  an  open  rupture  was 
made,  and  a  battle  ensued  upon  the  very  grounds  they  had  used  in  feasting, 
the  Pottawatomies  and  Kickapoos  uniting  their  forces  against  the  Miamis. 
Many  were  slain  on  both  sides;  and  after  fighting  from  morning  until  night, 
the  Miamis  took  advantage  of  the  night  to  withdraw,  leaving  the  allies  in 
possession  of  the  battle  field.  But  this  battle,  although  a  severe  one,  was 
by  no  means  a  decisive  one.  The  losses  on  both  sides  were  heavy,  and 
neither  were  in  a  condition  to  renew  the  fight  for  several  months,  as  they 
were  out  of  provisions  and  short  of  clothing  and  implements  of  war. 

"The  balance  of  the  summer  and  following  winter  were  spent  in  pre- 
paring for  a  renewal  of  the  contest  the  following  spring.  The  Miamis  went 
down  the  river  and  thence  to  Kaskaskia,  while  the  Pottawatomies  and  Kicka- 
poos remained  near  their  previous  winter  quarters,  collecting  provisions  and 
clothing,  and  constructing  bows  and  arrows  and  other  implements  of  Indian 
warfare.  Early  in  the  spring  following  (1771),  the  Miamis  returned  north- 
ward to  give  battle  to  their  late  allies,  but  now  bitter  enemies,  and  were  met 
near  Peoria,  where  another  battle  was  fought,  which,  like  the  former  one, 
was  not  decisive — was,  indeed,  a  drawn  battle;  and  each  party  buried  their 
own  dead.  The  evidences  of  these  two  great  battles  are.  (1873)  still  visible 
in  the  numerous  mounds  where  they  buried  their  dead,  which  are  still  there 
to  mark  the  spot;  and  arrow  flints  and  other  implements  of  Indian  warfare 
have  been  found  in  the  neighborhood  by  the  bushel. 

''The  war  lasted,  with  indifferent  success  to  either  party,  for  about  five 
years,  and  many  a  hard  fought  battle  attested  the  bravery  of  these  unfortu- 
nate, passion-blinded  savages,  who  .left  their  dead  buried  in  many  places 
throughout  the  coveted  territory.  In  the  year  1775  they  had  worked  around 


THE  POTTAWATOMIES.  63 


and  nearly  back  to  the  place  where  their  first  battle  had  occurred  with  the 
Illini.  Harassed  and  worn  by  excessively  long  marches  and  repeated  and 
sanguinary  battles,  both  armies  were  well  nigh  exhausted. 

"A  proposition  was  then  made  on  the  part  of  the  Miamis  to  pick  three 
hundred  warriors  from  each  side  and  let  them  commence  to  fight  at  sunrise 
and  continue  the  fight  until  either  the  one  side  or  the  other  should  conquer 
This  proposition  was  at  once  accepted  by  the  Pottawatomies  and  Kickapoos, 
upon  the  condition  that  the  weapons  on  both  sides  should  be  the  bow  and 
arrow,  tomahawk,  knife  and  spear,  or  such  implements  of  warfare  as  were 
peculiarly  Indian,  and  that  the  remnant  of  each  army  should  cross  to  the 
east  side  of  the  Wabash  river,  so  that  no  assistance  or  interference  could 
possibly  be  made  by  either  side.  This  agreement  was  entered  into  with  all 
the  solemnity  of  the  high  councils  of  these  respective  tribes,  and  three  hun- 
dred picked  warriors  were  selected  from  each  side,  who  crossed  over  to  the 
bloody  ground  and  encamped  upon  Sugar  Creek,  which  empties  into  the  Wa- 
bash river.  The  place  selected  for  this  terrible  duel  was  a  heavy  timber 
about  twenty  miles  from  the  Wabash.  The  battle  was  to  commence  at  sun- 
rise the  following  morning. 

"The  fated  morning  came — a  calm,  cool,  bright  September  morn,  and 
with  the  coming  of  the  morning  sun  the  battle  commenced.  Six  hundred 
stalwart  warriors  engaging  in  a  strife  for  victory  or  death. 

' '  They  practiced  every  pass  and  word 
To  thrust,  to  strike,  to  feint,  to  guard. 

"Here  were  the  deeds  of  a  Thermopylae  re-enacted.  Quarter  was 
neither  asked  nor  given — 'death  was  the  watchword  and  reply.1  Now 
shielding  behind  some  giant  oak— every  ruse  was  resorted  to  in  the  hope  of 
inducing  the  enemy  to  expose  his  person — now  grappling  in  a  death  struggle, 
the  combatants  fell  never  to  rise  again. 

"This  duel  raged  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  when  twelve  warriors  only  re- 
mained—five Miamis  and  seven  Pottawatomies  and  Kickapoos.  The  five 
run,  the  seven  are  the  victors.  The  great  chiefs,  Shick  Shack,  Sugar,  Mar- 
quett  and  Shaty  were  among  the  seven.  The  Miamis  wtre  conquered  ;  and 


STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


by  their  agreement  gave  up  all  claim  to  the  hunting  ground  of  the  annihilat- 
ed Illini  and  retired  east  of  the  Wabash. 

"  Thus  did  the  Pottawattomies  and  Kickapoos  become  the  successors  of 
the  Illini,  and  soon  after  this  final  battle  with  the  Miamis  they  divided  the 
territory  between  themselves,  the  Kickapoos  taking  all  the  territory  adjoining 
the  Wabash  west  to  a  line  running  north  and  south  through  Oliver's  Grove 
in  Livingston  county,  'and  the  Pottawatomies  all  the  territory  west  of  that 
line." 

The  Pottawatomies  having  taken  undisputed  possession  of  their  con- 
quest, made  their  principal  village  on  the  plain  northwest  of  Starved  Rock, 
near  the  present  village  of  Utica,  where,  among  others,  the  youthful  G.  S. 
Hubbard,  later  one  of  the  founders  of  the  city  of  Chicago,  as  representa- 
tive of  the  American  Fur  Company,  carried  on  a  trade  with  them.  Here, 
unlike  the  vanished  Illini,  the  Pottawatomies  lived  in  tents,  not  in  cabins. 
Another  important  village  was  called  Waubunsee  (or  Wauponehsee),  located 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Pish-ta-ka  (or  Poish-tah-le-  koosh  :  antelope),  as  these  Ind- 
ians called  the  Fox  river  of  Illinois,  and  the  ancient  city  of  Ottawa. 

In  1814,  however,  a  treaty  was  made  with  the  Ottawas,  Chippewas  and 
Pottawatomies,  kindred  tribes,  by  Ninian  Edwards.  William  Clark  and  Au- 
guste  Chouteau,  by  which  the  Indians  gave  up  their  Illinois  lands  south  of  a 
line  running  west  from  Lake  Michigan  to  the  Mississippi.  A  few  years  later 
(1834)  the  Pottawatomies  were  removed  from  Illinois  to  new  lands  beyond 
the  Mississippi  ;  and  the  Indian's  part  in  the  history  of  Starved  Rock  came 
to  an  end  forever. 


MODERN  STARVED   ROCK. 


Methinks  vou  take  luxurious  pleasure 
In  your  novel  western  leisure. 

—  Thortan. 

THE    ERA    OF    THE    WHITE    MAN. 

"THEN  the  white  man 
came,-  pale  as  the  dawn, 
with  a  load  of  thought, 
with  slumbering  intelli- 
gence as  a  fire  raked  up. 
He  bought  the  Indian's 
moccasins  and  furs; 
then  he  bought  his  hunt- 
ing grounds ;  and  at  length  he  forgot  where  the  Indian  was  buried  and 
plowed  up  his  bones."  The  tale  is  soon  told;  for  it  is  but  a  variation  of  the 
theme  which  but  now  is  dying  away  in  the  west,  as  the  Indian  slowly  dis- 
appears off  the  face  of  the  earth.  And  from  a  feudaLcastle  of  Sieur  de  la 
Salle  and  a  Rocjjjoi  Refuge  for  hunted  savages,  Starved  Rock  has  passed 
into  its  "western  leisure." 

Always  a  landmark  of  the  great  West  in  the  more  important  epochs  of 
its  history,  it  still  was  such  when  the  English  settlers  began  to  invade  the 
Illinois  country  ;  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  traveler  journeying 
in  the  Illinois  valley  "spying  out  the  land,"  who  has  not  told  of  going  out 
of  his  way  to  visit  and  call  attention  to  this  remarkable  natural  curiosity. 
Flint  in  his  "  History  and  Geography  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,"  published 
in  1833,  devotes  a  page  to  "Rock  Fort,"  describing  the  beauty  of  the  Rock 


66  STARVED  ROCK:  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

itself  and  its  surroundings  and  repeating  the  tradition  that  has  given  it  its 
name,  though  Flint  nowhere  calls  it  other  than  "  Rock  Fort."  Chas.  Fenno 
Hoffman,  a  then  distinguished  New  York  author  and  litterateur,  who  visited 
the  Rock  in  January,  1834,  while  on  a  winter  tour  through  the  West,  on  the 
other  hand,  calls  the  place  "Starved  Rock"  and  nothing  else,  showing  that  such 
was  its  common  name  at  that  time  in  the  Illinois  country.  Hoffman  has  a  note, 
written  by  an  unidentified  friend  resident  in  Illinois,  which  repeats  the  famil- 
iar legend,  with  this  single  exception,  that  while  the  writer  says  one  person 
escaped  from  the  Rock,  that  person  was  a  squaw,  who  was  still  alive  when  the 
Englishmen  entered  the  country.  Schoolcraft  (1820),  in  his  "Travels  through 
the  Central  Portions  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,"  records  having  visited  the 
Rock,  when  he  made  the  sketch  from  which  the  engraving  used  as  initial  to 
this  chapter  has  been  made.  Judge  Hall's  (Ohio)  '  'Tales  of  the  Border"  ( 183-), 
also  contains  the  Starved  Rock  legend,  which  was  the  common  property  of 
all  western  travelers  of  that  early  day. 

Of  all  the  many  articles  that  were  written  of  Starved  Rock  in  the  past, 
however,  none,  perhaps,  came  to  have  a  wider  circulation,  or  gave  the  Rock 
wider  celebrity,  than  one  written  by  Charles  Lanman,  an  article  erroneously 
attributed  by  some  of  our  more  celebrated  local  historians  to  Washington 
Irving,  who  unfortunately,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  never  saw 
and  certainly  never  wrote  a  line  about  the  Rock.  The  article  seems  to  have 
been  Mr.  Lanman's  "  swan  song,"  but  having  been  published  as  an  "  elegant 
extract  in  prose  from  an  eloquent  writer"  in  the  famous  "  Sanders  Series"  of 
readers  (my  copy  is  edition  of  1855),  "for  the  use  of  academies  and  the 
higher  classes  in  common  and  select  schools,"  it  was  read  and  declaimed  by 
the  youth  of  that  and  succeeding  decades  from  one  end  of  the  nation  to  the 
other ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  article  so  published  has  been  the  means 
of  bringing  thousands  of  curious  visitors  to  the  Rock  in  the  past  forty  years. 


The  era  of  the  "plowshare  and  pruning  hook"  has  come  to  Starved 
Rock.  " Grim-visaged  war  hath  smoothed  his  wrinkled  front,"  and  the 
frightful  and  laborious  past,  soothed  and  softened  by  the  tempering  touch  of 
lapsing  time,  has  left  its  record,  which  now  is  like  the 


MODERN  STARVED  ROCK.  6j 


Legends  and  runes 

Of  credulous  days ;  old  fancies  that  have  lain 
Silent  from  boyhood,  taking  voice  again, 
Warmed  into  life  once  more,  even  as  tunes 
That,  frozen  in  the  fabled  hunting  horn, 
Thawed  into  sound. 

The  modern  Starved  Rock  beleaguererscome  arrayed  in  bicycle  suits  and 
picnic  habiliments;  and  where  once  the  Frenchman  braved  the  terrors  of 
savagery,  his  nineteenth  century  successors,  born  of  all  nations,  now  invade 
the  land  to  make  an  al  fresco  holiday. 

To-day,  too,  its  Kaskaskia  cabins  have  been  replaced  by  a  modern  hotel, 
with  broad  verandas,  an  attractive  dining  room,  and  large  and  airy  guest 
chambers,  supplied  with  water,  gas,  and  the  comforts  of  a  hotel  of  the  best 
class,  and  with  private  cottages  attached  for  families,  —  many  comforts  which, 
to  the  Rock's  earliest  master,  Louis  the  Magnificent,  would  have  been  impos- 
sible luxuries.  The  broad  verandas  overlook  the  verdant,  peaceful  valley, 
while  the  cool  shade  of  the  forest  but  a  step  to  the  rear  of  the  hotel  brings 
rest  and  refreshment  to  the  tired  worker  seeking  here  summer  rest  and  recre- 
ation for  renewed  exertion  in  the  business  world.  Separated  from  the  hotel 
is  a  club  house  where  dancing  parties  are  held  ;  and  again  the  sound  of  mu- 
sic and  merry  laughter, — that  once  without  doubt  echoed  from  the  summit 
of  the  Rock  in  the  ancient  days  when  the  pleasure-loving  Frenchmen  found 
themselves  at  peace  with  savage  foes, — is  caught  up  by  the  sweet  south  wind 
to  fill  again  the  quiet  valley  with  the  harmonies  of  peace  and  happiness. 

Near  by,  and  accessible  to  pleasure  seekers,  are  the  cliffs,  the  glens  and 
the  canyons  of  Illinois  river,  which  unite  to  make  this  the  most  interesting 
locality  from  a  scenic  point  of  view  on  the  entire  stream.  Farther  away,  but 
still  within  even  walking  distance — a  few  miles  —are  the  famous  Bailey's 
Falls  and  Deer  Park  Glen,  the  beauty  spots  of  the  Big  Vermilion  river, 
which  itself  is  for  many  miles  of  its  length  the  most  interesting  region,  from 
the  geologist's  and  artist's  point  of  view,  in  all  northern  Illinois.  Deer  Park 
Glen  has  been  greatly  beautified  of  late  years  by  the  creation  of  roads  and 
paths  and  by  the  removal  of  the  refuse  of  nature ;  but  here,  as  is  also  the 


68 


STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


policy  of  the  Starved  Rock  management,  not  one  jot  or  tittle  of  nature's  own 
beauty  or  handiwork  has  been  or  will  be  disturbed. 

Of  all  this  interesting  region  the  Starved  Rock  Hotel  is  the  natural  cen- 
ter ;  and  its  management  offers  its  guests  all  facilities  for  examining  every 
portion  of  the  region  at  their  leisure.  The  Hotel,  owned  by  Walther  & 
Huehl,  of  Chicago,  and  managed  (1895)  by  Wm.  Tatsch,  is  the  equal  in  all 
respects  of  the  best  summer  hotels  of  the  West ;  and  thus  Starved  Rock  is 
rapidly  becoming  the  most  popular  summer  resort  in  the  Illinois  valley,  its 
register  during  the  past  few  years  having  contained  names  of  visitors  from 
nearly  every  state  of  the  Union. 


!Ht  HBHftBY 

Of  IHfc 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  HISTORIANS. 

As  year  by  year  his  tapestry  unrolled, 

What  varied  wealth  its  growing  length  displayed  ! 

What  long  processions  flamed  in  cloth  of  gold  ! 
What  stately  forms  the  flowing  robes  arrayed  ! 

He  told  the  red  man's  story  ;  far  and  wide 
He  searched  the  unwritten  records  of  his  race. 

—  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

FRANCIS    PARKMAN. 

DR.  FRANCIS  PARKMAN,  born  in  Boston,  September  16  1823,  came 
of  an  ancestry  distinguished  for  scholarly  attainment  and  achievement; 
and  so  early  was  his  own  taste  and  aptitude  for  literature  disclosed  that  in 
1840,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  he  was  meditating  on  a  history  of  the  French 
and  Indian  wars,  or,  to  be  more  specific,  the  "History  of  France  and  Eng- 
land in  North  America."  This  project  took  definite  shape,  and  from  boyhood 
to  the  end  the  work  of  a  lifetime  was  pursued  with  exceptional  consistency 
and  inspiring  steadfastness  of  aim  and  endeavor.  It  was  practically  fifty 
years  from  the  time  he  began  his  life's  work  to  the  day  he  completed  it — by 
an  interesting  coincidence  naming  his  last  volume,  "Fifty  Years  of  Conflict." 
"The  Oregon  Trail,"  which  was  a  prelude  to  his  great  undertaking,  was 
the  result  of  a  summer  journey,  undertaken  by  himself  and  his  cousin, 
Quincy  A.  Shaw,  in  1846,  across  the  continent  into  the  Black  Hills.  As  Dr. 
Parkman's  nearest  friend,  Rev.  Julius  H.  Ward,*  has  said:  "This  volume 
shows  how  he  became  acquainted  with  the  kind  of  life  which  in  writing  of 
the  early  settlement  of  North  America  he  was  called  upon  to  describe.  It 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  attractive  interest  and  the  feeling  of  reality  which 


*  See  The  Outlook,  1893. 


FRANCIS  PARKMAN,  LL  D. 


THE     HISTORIANS.  71 


are  every  where  imparted  to  his  narrative.  Mr.  Parkman  entered  into  his 
undertaking  with  such  ardor  and  enthusiasm  that,  before  he  was  aware  of  it, 
he  had  overtaxed  his  strength  and  had  prepared  the  way  for  permanent  phy- 
sical infirmity — not  that  of  eyesight,  except  to  a  limited  extent,  but  a  tend- 
ency to  congestion  of  the  brain,  which  all  his  life  withdrew  him  from  the 
field  of  active  duty  and  constantly  interfered  with  his  work  as  a  scholar,  now 
reaching  him  in  disability  of  this  organ  and  now  in  the  infirmity  of  that,  and 
constantly  limiting  him  in  his  hours  of  work  and  compelling  him  to  go  at  a 
snail's  pace  when  he  felt  as  if  the  only  satisfaction  to  his  spirit  would  have 
been  to  march  forward  like  a  colonel  at  the  head  of  his  regiment.  His  phy- 
sical infirmities  were  a  tremendous  drawback  in  his  life-work,  but  his  spirit 
was  so  resolute,  and  he  lived  so  much  above  his  limitations  of  body,  that 
nothing  interfered  with  his  great  object,  and  he  lived  to  complete  his  work 
and  bring  the  history  down  to  the  year  1760,  when  the  English  completed 
their  conquest  of  New  France,  and  to  see  the  plan  which  he  laid  out  while  a 
college  student  developed  and  treated  in  every  respect  as  exhaustively  as  the 
materials  will  permit." 

"The  Oregon  Trail"  is  an  incomparable  picture  of  the  life  that  once  ex- 
isted on  the  great  plains  of  the  Far  West,  which  has  now  disappeared  forever. 
It  was  dictated  to  his  traveling  companion;  and  all  his  life  thereafter  he  was 
dependent  on  the  pens  of  his  friends  or  of  paid  amanuenses  not  only  for  the 
performance  of  the  labor  of  writing  his  words  at  his  dictation,  but  for  the 
collection  and  collating  of  materials  under  his  direction.  Five  times  he  went 
to  Europe,  taking  with  him  trained  assistants  to  aid  him  in  procuring  the 
necessary  data  for  his  histories.  Tens  of  thousands  of  maps  and  folio  copies 
of  documents  were  made  in  the  museums  and  public  archives  of  France  and 
England.  With  infinite  patience  and  labor  all  of  these  were  examined,  in 
order  that  the  histories  might  cover  every  important  detail  of  their  time  with 
absolute  accuracy. 

In  1850  he  married  Catherine  Bigelow,  and  for  a  brief  space  (less  than 
eight  years)  found  in  her  companionship  sweet  solace  for  an  illness  which  to 
a  lesser  man  would  have  been  a  veritable  death  in  life.  Yet  these  were 
the  happiest  years  of  his  life. 


72  STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

In  1851  the  "Conspiracy  of  Pontiac  "  appeared,  the  first  of  that  notable 
series  of  historical  narratives  entitled  "France  and  England  in  America," 
though  chronologically  it  is  the  last. 

Not  again  until  1858,  after  the  death  of  his  wife,  did  Dr.  Parkman  find 
physical  strength  to  resume  his  life's  work.  In  the  meantime,  as  a  diversion, 
he  essayed  the  role  of  a  novelist,  ' '  Vassall  Morton  "  being  his  third  book. 
"It  was  a  sucees  d'estime."  But  "the  man  who  could  make  history  more  fas- 
cinating than  romance,  saw  that  it  was  a  waste  of  time  and  talents  to  make 
novels  less  agreeable  than  history;  and  he  never  repeated  the  experiment." 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  for  some  years  he  could  do  absolutely  nothing; 
that  for  many  more  he  could  work  but  five  minutes  a  day,  and  that  he  never 
was  able  to  work  above  ten  hours,  or  to  compose  above  five  hundred  words 
a  day,  his  purpose  never  faltered;  but  the  successive  volumes  came  slowly, 
"The  Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World"  (1865);  "The  Jesuits  in  North 
America"  (1867);  "La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  the  Great  West"  (1869); 
"The  Old  Regime  in  Canada"  (1874);  "Count  Frontenac  and  New  France" 
(1877);  "Montcalm  and  Wolfe"  (1884);  and  "A  Half  Century  of  Conflict" 
(1892) — with  which  last  the  author  laid  down  his  pen  (dying  November  8, 
1893),  a  life  task  fulfilled — fulfilled  with  the  happiness  of  complete  recogni- 
tion of  its  significance  and  uniqueness,  and  with  the  world's  acknowledge 
ment  that  never  need  the  work  be  repeated. 

"The  twelve  volumes  which  constitute  the  history  as  it  now  stands," 
as  Dr.  Ward  remarks,  "  constitute  a  work  which  has  a  permanent  value.  It 
is  a  thorough  examination  of  all  the  facts  and  an  impartial  treatment  of  them. 
This  has  been  conceded  by  Catholic  and  Protestant  students.  It  is  as  free 
from  excess  in  one  direction  as  in  the  other.  Mr.  Parkman  is  able  to  sympa- 
thize with  both  parties  in  the  contention  for  the  mastery  of  North  America, 
and  usually  allows  the  facts  to  speak  for  themselves  and  lead  us  to  their  ob- 
vious conclusion.  It  is  these  qualities  of  thoroughness  and  impartiality 
which  give  his  work  authority,  and  the  charming  style  in  which  it  is  written 
insures  a  permanent  popularity." 

His  publishers,   Little,   Brown  &  Co.,  Boston,   have  recently   issued  a 


THE  HISTORIANS. 


73 


new  edition  of  his  works,  with  his  latest  revisions,  including  "  The  Oregon 
Trail,"  characteristically  illustrated  by  Frederick  Remington.  The  edition 
is  superior  in  workmanship,  convenient  in  size  and  moderate  in  price. 


JOHN  GILMARY  SHEA,  LL.D. 

Thou  thy  worldly  task  hast  done, 
Home  art  gone  and  ta'en  thy  wages. 

—  Anon 


JOHN  GILMARY  SHEA,  LL.D. 


After  Parkman,  no  one  man,  perhaps,  has  done  more  to  recover  the  his 
tory  of  the  early  French  in  the  Mississippi  valley  than  Dr  Shea.  Deeply 
religious  by  nature  and  early  training,  and,  after  his  graduation  from  Co- 


74  STARVED    ROCK  :    A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

lumbia  College,  of  which  his  father  was  a  professor,  for  six  years  a  novice  of 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  he  became  as  a  Catholic  much  interested  in  the  early 
history  of  Catholicism  on  this  continent,  and  was  especially  moved,  as  must 
be  evety  imaginative  mind,  by  the  heroism  of  the  men  who  first  carried  the 
cross  to  the  Indians  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Great  Lakes  valleys. 

Compelled  by  precarious  health  to  abandon  the  university,  he  resumed 
the  practice  of  law,  interrupted  by  his  connection  with  the  Jesuits  ;  but  his 
historical  studies,  one  may  imagine,  consumed  much  of  the  time  other  lawyers 
would  have  given  to  their  briefs  His  preliminary  literary  work  was  in  the 
form  of  contributions  to  Catholic  periodicals,  which  quickly  brought  him  to 
the  attention  of  the  literary  world,  especially  of  .historical  students  of  this 
country  and  Europe.  At  the  age  of  twenty-six  (1850),  he  published  his 
"  History  of  the  Discovery  and  Exploration  of  the  Mississippi  River,"  a  work 
whose  apparent  great  research  in  the  buried  archives  of  Canadian  govern- 
mental and  sacerdotal  records,  and  whose  accuracy  and  uniqueness,  at  once 
placed  him  in  the  rank  of  the  first  rate  historians  of  his  country.  It  was 
the  first  work  to  give  dignity  and  form  to  an  important  part  of  our  western 
annals.  It  has  been  honored  and  approved  by.  frequent  reference  by  Dr. 
Parkman. 

An  equally,  and  perhaps  in  some  respects  even  more,  important  service  was 
the  editing  and  publishing  by  him  of  twenty  six  volumes  of  the  missionaries' 
"  Relations"  (official  reports),  all  of  which  were  outside  and  in  addition  to 
those  published  by  the  Canadian  government,  covering  the  early  French  ex- 
plorations in  the  great  West  and  invaluable  as  a  mine  for  original  research. 
His  "  History  of  the  Catholic  Missions  among  the  Indian  Tribes  of  the  United 
States"  is  also  a  monument  to  his  learning,  industry  and  piety.  Both  of 
thise  works  are  deeply  interesting  to  the  student  of  to-day. 

He  was  an  indefatigable  worker,  and  a  list  of  his  books  and  contribu- 
tions to  periodicals  and  historical  society  records  would  fill  a  goodly  page. 
His  last  and  perhaps  greatest  work  was  a  "  History  of  the  Catholic  Church 
in  the  United  States,"  which  he  finished  on  his  death-bed. 

As  to  bis  work  in  generally,  Dr.  Richard  H.  Clark,   in  the    "Catholic 


THK    NOVELIST. 


75 


Family  Annual,"*  truly  says  :  "His  position  in  the  special  department  of 
Catholica  Americana  was  unequalled  and  unique.  His  advent  in  our  midst 
at  a  time  when  our  Catholic  historical  records  and  materials  were  wasting 
was  providential,  for  he  was  foremost  in  teaching  us  their  value  and  in  mak- 
ing a  noble  and  able  use  of  them.  He  was  by  prestige  in  his  day  the  histo- 
rian of  the  American  Catholic  Church."  And,  it  maybe  added,  he  was  also 
a  man  in  whom  the  Christian  virtues  which  adorned  his  private  life  were 
covered  by  a  veil  of  modesty  and  humility. 

He  was  born  in  New  York  July  22,  1824  ;  and  died  at  Elizabeth,  N.  J., 
February  22,  1892. 

MRS.  MARY  H.  CATHERWOOD. 

Give  to  barrows,  trays  and  pans, 

Grace  and  glimmer  of  romance.  —Emerson. 

THE    NOVELIST. 

Mrs.  Mary  Hartwell  Catherwood,  a  resi- 
dent of  Hoopestown,  Illinois,  in  "  The  Ro- 
mance of  Dollard,"  "The  Story  of  Ton- 
ty,"  etc  ,  has  in  romance  done  for  the  period 
pf  French  dominion  in  North  America 
what  Packman  has  done  for  it  in  history:  re- 
created the  period  for  the  instruction  and 
amusement  of  present  generations  ;  and  if 
Parkman  has  given  to  history  the  charm  of 
romance,  Mrs.  Catherwood  has  no  less 
served  history  by  reproducing  in  romance 
the  charm  of  local  color,  in  the  realistic 
MRS.  CATHERWOOD.  pictures  of  the  life  of  the  Canadian  and 

Illinois  people  of  those  far-away  days,  without  which  history  itself  is  in- 
complete and  unsatisfactory. 


*  I  am  indebted  to  this  book  for  the  materials  of  this  imperfect  sketch,  as  well  as 
foe  the  original  of  the  portrait  of  Dr.  Shea  herewith. 


76  STARVED  ROCK:  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

The  reader  of  this  sketch  is  the  more  interested  in  "The  Story  of 
Tonty,"  since  the  characters  of  the  tale  are  the  heroes  of  Starved  Rock,  while 
the  Rock  itself  is  the  scene  of  not  the  least  absorbing  events  of  the  story. 

"The  Story  of  Tonty"  is  the  story  of  a  friend.  The  most  faithful  of 
servants,  Tonty  was  also  the  most  steadfast  of  friends — that  rarest  of 
human  blessings,  which  at  best  comes  to  a  few  men  only,  and  to  each  but 
once.  Parkman  has  borne  testimony  to  the  disinterested  fidelity  of  Tonty; 
but  it  remained  for  Mrs.  Catherwood  in  "The  Story  of  Tonty"  to  recreate 
the  living  man  and  present  him  to  us  crowned  with  the  praises  of  "histo- 
rians, priests,  tradition,  savages  and  his  own  deeds." 

The  story  opens  with  the  "Beaver  Fair"  at  Montreal,  1678.  La  Salle 
and  Tonty  had  just  arrived  from  France  to  explore  the  West.  The  picture 
of  the  savage  gathering  assembled  for  trade  and  a  pow-wow  with  Fronte- 
nac,  the  governor,  is  very  realistic.  The  thread  of  enmity  against  La  Salle 
that  appears  in  the  conversations  of  the  traders  and  merchants  is  a  hint  of 
his  ultimate  failure,  and  discloses  also  the  reasons  for  it.  In  Book  II  the 
scene  is  La  Salle's  Lake  Ontario  fort,  Ft.  Frontenac  ;  and  the  theme  is  La 
Salle's  earlier  disappointments  and  the  adverse  influences  operating  against 
him  on  the  St.  Lawrence.  In  Book  III  the  scene  is  at  Starved  Rock  dur- 
ing that  distressing  period  when  La  Salle  was  in  France  for  the  last  time  ; 
was  murdered  in  Texas,  and  when  his  brother  and  Joutel,  saved  from  the 
fate  of  La  Salle,  enjoying  Tonty's  hospitality,  hid  from  him  the  news  of  the 
death  of  his  master  and  friend,  La  Salle. 

The  story  is  faithful  to  the  thread  of  La  Salle's  career,  and  so  is  full  of 
heroism  and  suffering,  deception  and  treachery,  "envy,  hatred  and  malice 
and  all  uncharitableness, "  relieved,  however,  by  the  loving  faithfulness  of 
Barbe,  La  Salle's  niece,  and  Tonty,  his  friend.  Nearly  all  the  celebrated 
names  in  northwestern  discovery  in  the  seventeenth  century  are  met  in  the 
course  of  the  story  ;  which  completes,  with  its  color,  the  picture,  the  draw- 
ing of  which  was  the  work  of  Parkman,  the  historian. 


NOTE.— I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.,  publishers  of  "  The 
Story  of  Tonty,"  for  the  portrait  of  Mrs.  Catherwood  herewith. 


ENTRANCE    TO    DEER    PARK    GLEN. 


RELICS. 

Some  rusted  swords  appear  in  dust ; 

One,  bending  forward,  says, 
"  The  arms  belonged  to  heroes  gone  ; 
We  never  hear  their  praise  in  song." 

—  Duan  of  Ca-Lodin. 

THE   SILENT  WITNESSES. 

ON  the  bluff  about  twenty-four  hundred  feet  south  of  Starved  Rock,  at 
the  junction  of  two  ravines,  as  shown  by  the  map  on  the  following  page 
the  faint  and  disappearing  remains  may  be  said  to  be  still  visible  of  an  old 
earthwork  of  irregular  shape.  The  map* — made,  I  believe,  from  a  survey 
by  Col.  D.  F.  Hitt,  for  many  years  the  owner  of  Starved  Rock,  having 
had  his  deed  directly  from  the  United  States  government — indicates  its  form 
and  size.  Much  learned  conjecture,  not  omitting,  of  course  suitable  refer- 
ence to  the  Aztecs  and  dates  not  long  subsequent  to  the  Noachian  period, 
has  been  put  on  paper  touching  the  origin  of  this  so  called  fort,  which  even 
the  French  are  credited  with  having  built,  though  its  usefulness  to  them  can 
hardly  be  conjectured ;  but  the  truth  seems  to  be  that  it  is  the  remains 
of  a  stockade,  perhaps,  erected  by  the  Shawanoe  Indians  when  they  resided 
there  as  a  part  of  La  Salle's  famous  settlement  of  1682-3.  A  reference  to 
the  Franquelin  map  (page  30)  shows  the  location  of  two  hundred  cabins  of 
the  Chaouenon  at  the  point  where  these  remains  are  found.  La  Salle,  says 
Parkman,  ".undoubtedly  supplied  Franquelin  with  materials"  for  this  map. 
And  Parkman  also  says  :  "The  Shawanoe  camp,  or  village,  is  placed  on 
the  south  side  of  the  river,  behind  the  fort  (Starved  Rock).  The  country 
here  is  hilly,  broken,  and  now,  as  in  La  Salle's  time,  covered  with  wood, 


*Reproduced  (reduced  size)  from  ""Baldwin's  History  of  La  Salle  County." 


78 


STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


which,  however,  soon  ends  in  the  open  prairie.     The  village  of  the  Shawan- 
oes  on  Franquelin's  map  corresponds  with  the  position  of  this  earthwork." 


Located  7lX)  feet  Esit  an3  5 


b  o(  Qr.&ct.Cor.beLSert'* 


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Survey  of  Old  Fort  on  Bluff  South  of  Slarvea  Rock. 


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AN  ANCIENT  DEED. 

LTRANSLAUON.] 

"The  year  1693,  the  igth  of  April,  I,  Francis  de  la  Forest,  Captain  on 
the  retired  list  in  the  marine  service,  Seignor  of  part  of  all  the  country  of 
Louisiana,  otherwise  Illinois,  granted  to  Monsieur  deTonty  and  to  me  by  the 
King  to  enjoy  in  perpetuity,  we,  our  heirs,  successors,  and  assigns,  the  same  as 
it  was  recognized  by  the  act  of  the  Sovereign  Council  in  Quebec  in  the  month 
of  August,  of  the  year  1691,  the  said  council  assembled,  declare  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  undersigned  witness  that  I  have  ceded,  sold,  and  transferred  to 
Mr.  Michel  Acau*  the  half  of  my  part  of  the  above  described  concession,  to 
enjoy  the  same  like  myself  from  the  present  time,  to  him,  his  heirs,  succes- 
sors, and  assigns,  with  the  same  rights,  privileges,  prerogatives  and  benefits 


*8ee  chapter  on  "The  Missions,"  supra. 


AN    ANCIENT    DEED. 


7Q 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  FIRST  DEED  EXECUTED  IN  ILLINOIS. 


STARVED  ROCK:  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


which  have  been  heretofore  accorded  to  the  late  M.  de  la  Salle  as  it  appears 
particularly  in  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  the  King ;  and  in  considerntion 
of  the  sum  of  6,000  livres  in  current  beaver  which  the  said  Mr.  Acau  shall 
pay  me  at  Chicagou,  where  I  stay,  and  upon  the  making  of  the  payment  down 
I  cannot  demand  from  him  any  advantage  neither  for  the  carriage  of  the  said 
beaver  to  Montreal  nor  for  the  risk,  and  as  there  is  no  notary  here  for  him 
to  pass  an  instrument  of  sale  I  bind  myself  at  the  first  occasion  to  send  him 
one,  as  also  a  copy  compared  before  a  notary  of  the  above  mentioned  decree 
of  the  Council  of  the  King  touching  the  present  concession,  on  faith  of  which 
we  have  both  signed  the  said  contract  of  sile  the  one  and  the  other  the  day 
and  the  year  as  above ;  and  in  case  that  one  of  us  two  would  dispose  of  his 
part  the  remaining  one  shall  be  the  first  preferred,  and  this  is  mutual  between 
M.  de  Tonty  and  me.  Made  in  duplicate  the  day  and  year  aforesaid. 
"Ds  LA  FOREST.  DE  LA  DESCOUVERTES,  Witness. 

"M.  Aco.  NICOLAS  LAURENS,  DE  LA  CHAPELLE,  Witness." 

The  deed  is  indorsed  on  the  back  to  the  following  effect :  ' '  Bill  of  sale 
between  Mr.  Ako  and  me  conveying  the  land  of  the  Illinois." 

This  deed  was  purchased  in  Paris,  late  in  year  1893,  by  Hon.  Edward 
G.  Mason  and  deposited  by  him  in  the  archives  of  the  Historical  Society 
of  Chicago,  January  16,  1894.  It  is  believed  to  be  the  first  conveyance  of 
Illinois  real  estate, — though  how  much  or  where  it  lay  is  not  very  clear,  ex- 
cept that  it  was  the  Illinois  country, — made  by  deed  executed  within  the 
borders  of  this  state.  The  document  covers  one  page  of  large  foolscap 
paper  and  is  apparently  all  in  the  handwriting  of  La  Forest.  The  paper 
bears  an  ancient  watermark  and  is  of  the  same  texture  and  quality  as  that 
used  in  Canada  at  the  time  of  its  date. 

In  presenting  the  document  to  the  Society,  Mr.  Mason  epitomized  the 
facts  given  in  this  little  book,  concluding  as  follows  : 

"The  grantee  in  the  deed,  whose  name  is  usually  written  Michel  Accau, 
was  the  real  leader  of  the  party  which,  by  La  Salle's  direction,  explored  the 
Upper  Mississippi  and  discovered  the  falls  of  St.  Anthony  in  1682.  Father 
Hennepin  accompanied  this  expedition  as  a  volunteer,  and  [having  written 


THK  RELICS.  8l 

an  account  of  his  travels  on  thit  occasion]  is  usually  given  the  credit  of  its 
discoveries.  Accau  subsequently  resided  in  Kaskaskia  [Starved  Rock]  and 
married  a  daughter  of  the  chief  of  the  Kaskaskia  tribe.  A  record  of  their 
marriage  still  exists  in  the  ancient  register  of  the  [new]  parish  of  the  Im- 
maculate Conception  at  Kaskaskia  [on  the  Mississppi]. 

'  Of  the  witnesses,  De  La  Descouverte  was  a  Canadian  voyageur  from 
Lachine,  who  accompanied  La  Salle  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  in  1682, 
and  La  Chapelle  was  also  one  of  La  Salle's  men  who  was  with  him  in  the 
year  1680,  and  was  sent  by  him  from  the  St.  Joseph  River  and  the  Michilli- 
mackinac  in  search  of  La  Salle's  lost  vessel,  the  Griffin,  and  afterwards  join- 
ed Tonty  at  Fort  Creve-Coeur,  near  the  present  site  of  Peoria. 

"It  is  quite  certain  that  this  document  was  executed  either  at  Fort  St. 
Louis  of  the  Illinois  or  at  Chicago,  with  the  probability  in  favor  of  the  latter 
place.  In  1693  there  had  been  already,  certainly  for  eight  years,  a  fort  here, 
and  there  was  near  it  at  that  time  a  Jesuit  mission  ;  and  doubtless  here  oc- 
curred the  first  conveyance  of  real  estate  in  what  is  now  Illinois  executed 
within  its  boundaries,  which  this  ancient  document  evidences.  It  is  fitting 
and  fortunate  that  it  should,  two  hundred  years  after  its  execution,  come 
into  the  possession  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Chicago  to  be  preserved  sa- 
credly by  it." 

With  the  latter  paragraph  the  present  writer  takes  issue  ;  and  those  who 
have  followed  this  narrative  thus  far  will  understand  that  however  Mr.  Ma- 
son's civic  pride  might  claim  the  deed  as  executed  on  Chicago's  soil,  all  the 
facts  are  against  such  a  conclusion.  Fort  St.  Louis  was  Acau's  (or  Ako's) 
home  as  well  as  La  Forest's  at  that  time  ;  it  was  the  capital  of  the  Illinois 
country  and  the  centre  of  La  Forest's  and  Tonty's  operations;  and  though 
a  fort  was  doubtless  there  on  the  lake  shore,  it  was  a  mere  station  without 
importance  or  regular  garrison  or  settlers,  either  whites  or  Indians, — a  depot 
for  the  deposit  of  furs  for  shipment  by  lake  to  Canada.*  The  deed  was  in 
all  probability  signed  at  the  fort  at  Starved  Rock. 

*  S^e  La  Salle's  reference  to  Chicago  in  certain  of  his  reports.    Translation  in  the 
Magazine  of  American  History,  Vol.  I,  p  553. 


82 


STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


"  MARQUETTE'S  CROSS." 


The  most  interesting  of  the  relics  of  Starved  Rock's  ancient  days  is  the 
remarkable  cross,  of  which  the  above  is  a  picture  made  from  a  recent  pho- 
tograph (full  size  of  the  original.)  It  was  found  near  the  Rock,  and  is  the 
property  of  Col.  D.  F.  Hitt.  It  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  insignia  of  an  arch- 
bishop. By  some  it  has  been  called  Marquette  s  Cross ;  but  it  is  hardly 
probable  that  that  modest  hero  ever  owned  it.  He  never  held  any  rank 
as  a  churchman  above  that  of  priest  ;  and  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the 
early  missionaries  frequently  exercised  the  powers  of  the  church's  officials 


THE  RELICS.  83 

of  much  higher  rank,  and  may  even  have  worn  their  insignia,  nevertheless 
the  location  in  which  it  was  found  is  against  the  probability  of  Marquette's 
connection  with  this  particular  cross.  Marquette  at  most  was  at  the  Kas- 
kaskia  village  near  Starved  Rock  not  to  exceed  fifteen  days.  During  those 
days  he  was  busy  trying  to  save  souls  ;  and  seeing  that  the  Indian  village 
was  on  the  north  bank  of  the  river  and  a  mile  west  of  the  Rock,  which  was 
at  that  time  wholly  unoccupied,  it  is  not  likely  that  Marquette  ever  put  his 
foot  on  that  side  of  the  river.  The  cross  may  have  belonged  to  one  of  the 
priests  named  in  the  chapter  on  "  The  Missions." 

In  explaining,  or  in  endeavoring  to  explain,  the  presence  of  this  cross 
(which  is  not,  as  he  says,  pure  gold,  but  rather  brass  covered  originally  with 
black  enamel),  Matson*  says:  "The  Archbishop  of  Rouen  sent  to  Canada 
one  satin  robe,  and  a  large  gold  cross,  with  other  emblems,  to  be  given 
to  the  most  devoted  priest  in  America.  The  fathers  awarded  these  gifts  to 
Father  Chrisp,  chaplain  of  Fort  St.  Louis,  but  he  died  before  their  arrival, 
and  in  the  fall  of  1688  these  things  were  presented  to  Father  [Abbe]  Cav- 
elier,  brother  of  La  Salle.  It  is  possible,"  concludes  our  author,  "  that  the 
cross  herewith  may  be  the  one  referred  to,  and  was  lost  by  the  owner  during 
his  rambles  around  the  Rock." 

This  is  all  very  interesting,  but  I  am  quite  of  the  opinion  that  there  is 
even  less  of  pure  gold  in  the  story  than  in  the  cross ;  and  it  certainly  is  a 
surprise  to  know  that  the  Abbe  Cavelier  had  ever  been  awarded  a  prize  for 
his  piety.  No  one  now-a-days  would  have  suspected  it.  However,  this  cross 
is  not  gold,  as  before  remarked. 

OTHER  CURIOS. 

Many  minor  relics  have  been  found  near  the  Rock,  mostly  articles  of 
jewelry,  coins  of  small  value,  medals,  etc. ;  and  Col.  Hitt  has  unearthed 
also  remains  of  French  underground  furnaces  or  bake-ovens  near  the  Rock, 
and  now  wears  a  heavy  gold  ring  found  there. 

Near  Ottawa,  some  years  ago,  a  small  cannon  was  found,  which  con- 
sisted of  a  welded  tubef  of  iron,  about  an  inch  and  a  half  in  calibre, 

*MATSON  :  "Pioneers  of  Illinois." 
fPARKMAN  :  "La  Salle,  etc" 


STARVED  ROCK  :  A  HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 


strengthened  by  a  series  of  thick  iron  rings,  cooled  on  after  the  most  ancient 
as  well  as  the  most  modern  methods  of  making  cannon.  It  was  fourteen 
inches  long,  the  part  near  the  muzzle  having  been  burst  off.  Its  construc- 
tion was  very  rude,  and  it  may  have  been  made  by  a  French  blacksmith.  As 
the  work  of  a  European  cannon  m  iker,  it  would  have  been  antiquated  even 
in  the  time  of  De  Soto  or  Coronado. 

The  apparent  pits  in  the  soil  on  the  top  of  the  Rock  may  be  the  remains 
of  holes  dug  by  credulous  traders  early  in  the  last  century,  who  believed 
they  might  find  gold  buried  there  by  Tonty  ;  but  as  the  "coin  "  of  the  Illi- 
nois in  those  days  was  "current  beaver"  rather  than  Louis-d'or,  it  is  not 
recorded  that  any  of  the  gold  seekers  found  reward  for  their  labor. 


But  the  noblest  of  all  the  relics  of  Starved  Rock  is  its  history  ;  and  it 
stands  as  a  monument  to  those  weak  ones  of  earth  whose  mortal  sufferings 
here  were,  in  God's  mysterious  wisdom,  not  the  least  of  the  many  contribu- 
tions of  human  sacrifice  which  have  preserved  to  the  people  of  the  Illinois 
valley,  and  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  world,  the  priceless  heritage  of 
English  Liberty. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 
977.3270S5S  C001 

STARVED  ROCK  OTTAWA 


30112025388544 


•HHEoBx^y 


